艾米·亨尼格

Amy Hennig

新媒体部总裁

President, New Media Division

天舞传媒

Skydance Media

头脑风暴

Brainstorming

头脑风暴是团体或个人的一种活动，我们会自发地提出想法并写下来。它有助于快速生成长长的想法清单，还可以帮助团队成员相互了解和理解。

Brainstorming is an activity for groups or individuals where we come up with ideas spontaneously and write them down. It’s good for generating long lists of ideas very quickly and can also help members of a team get to know and understand one another.

当我们严格遵循一小段规则时，头脑风暴的效果最好。你可以在网上找到这些规则的各种版本，但以下是我最喜欢的一套：

Brainstorming works best when we closely follow a short list of rules. You’ll find various versions of these rules online, but here is my favorite set:

• 设定时间限制新手头脑风暴者经常会忽略这一关键规则。头脑风暴时间短时效果最好。20 分钟迫使每个人都快速工作，30 分钟是最佳上限。如果你能顺利完成任务，那就坚持更长时间。头脑风暴中的时间压力有多种好处，包括帮助你专注于下一个最重要的规则……
• Set a time limit. Rookie brainstormers often overlook this crucial rule. Brainstorms work best when they’re short. Twenty minutes forces everyone to work fast, and thirty minutes is a good maximum. If you get on a roll, go longer. Time pressure in a brainstorm pays off in multiple ways, including helping you focus on the next most important rule …
• 注重数量而非质量。在头脑风暴中，你并不是想想出正确的想法或最好的想法。你只是试图捕捉所有的想法。稍后你会选出最好的。鼓励每个人说出他们脑海中浮现的第一件事。如果你的团队喜欢竞争，那就设定一个目标，想出比你以前想出的更多的想法。然而，如果你不这样做，这可能会陷入混乱……
• Focus on quantity over quality. You’re not trying to come up with the right idea or the best idea during a brainstorm. You’re just trying to capture all the ideas. You’ll pick the best ones later. Encourage everyone to say the first thing that comes into their mind. If your team likes competition, set a goal to come up with more ideas than you’ve ever come up with before. However, this could descend into chaos if you don’t …
• 任命一名主持人让小组中的一名成员负责。他们将负责推动事情的发展，贡献想法以启动头脑风暴，并确保……
• Appoint a facilitator. Put one member of the group in charge. They will be tasked with moving things along, contributing ideas to get the brainstorm started, and making sure that …
• 每次只有一个人说话。这可以让会议保持活力，而不会变得混乱，并让团队成员有机会展示对彼此的尊重，建立信任。主持人还应确保……
• Only one person speaks at a time. This keeps the session energetic without becoming chaotic and gives the team members a chance to demonstrate respect for each other, developing trust. The facilitator should also make sure that …
• 每个人都有发言的机会团队中的每个人都可以提出好的想法，但有些人可能不愿意发言。优秀的主持人会注意到有人想发言但难以加入对话，并为他们的声音留出空间。主持人或团队中的其他人也应该负责……
• Everyone gets a chance to speak. Good ideas can come from everyone on the team, but some people might be reluctant to speak up. A good facilitator will notice when someone wants to contribute but is having trouble jumping into the conversation and will make and hold space for their voice. The facilitator or someone else on the team should also be tasked to …
• 把一切都写下来. 记录所有想法。将想法写在白板上让每个人都能看到，这很好，但共享在线文档或写在笔记本上也是可以的。每一个想法都值得记录下来，无论它看起来多么明显或奇怪。
• Write everything down. Capture all the ideas. Writing the ideas on a whiteboard where everyone can see them is good, but a shared online document or writing in a notebook is fine too. Every last idea is worthy of being recorded, no matter how obvious or weird it seems.
• 欢迎不同寻常的想法——越奇怪越好。这条规则是对“注重数量而不是质量”的补充。在头脑风暴中，我们试图摆脱熟悉的事物，进入新的领域。一个看似不可行、奇怪的想法后来可能会成为绝妙创意和创新的源泉。主持人应该定期提醒每个人这条规则，以帮助打破我们对说一些看起来愚蠢或奇怪的话的社会抵触情绪。
• Welcome unusual ideas—the weirder the better. This rule complements “focus on quantity over quality.” In a brainstorm, we’re trying to get away from the familiar and into fresh territory. An idea that seems unworkably strange could later prove to be a source of brilliant originality and innovation. The facilitator should regularly remind everyone about this rule, to help break down the social resistance that we all have to saying things that seem silly or odd.
• 说“是的，而且”——结合并改进想法。这是一种让事情继续进行的好方法——尤其是当你的大脑一片空白的时候。使用即兴喜剧和戏剧中的“是的，而且”技巧，通过采用先前的一个想法并对其进行添加或修改。
• Say “yes, and”—combine and improve ideas. This is a great way to keep things moving along—especially when your mind goes blank. Use the “yes, and” technique from improv comedy and theater, by taking one of the earlier ideas and adding to it or modifying it.
• 不要在头脑风暴期间讨论想法。对于游戏设计师等善于分析的人来说，这条规则通常很难遵守。我们都想在听到想法后立即开始分析，看看它们是否有用。不要在头脑风暴期间这样做。讨论的时间稍后再说。现在，记住时间限制，专注于产生尽可能多的新想法。
• Don’t discuss the ideas during the brainstorm. This rule is often very hard for analytical people like game designers to follow. We all want to start dissecting ideas as soon as we hear them, to see if they’re any good. Don’t do this during the brainstorm. The time for discussion comes later. For now, remember the time limit and focus on generating as many new ideas as possible.

思维导图

Mind Mapping

思维导图是头脑风暴的更结构化版本，当您想更深入地探索核心概念时，它非常有效。该技术非常简单：在白板、屏幕或纸张中间写下核心想法，然后开始头脑风暴，遵循上述所有相同规则。每个新想法都应与核心想法或已在思维导图中写下的另一个想法相关。您可以在图 2.1中看到一个处于创作阶段的思维导图示例。

Mind mapping is a more structured version of brainstorming and works well when you’ve arrived at a core concept that you want to explore in greater depth. The technique is very simple: write down the core idea in the middle of a whiteboard, screen, or sheet of paper, and begin to brainstorm, following all the same rules described above. Each new idea should be connected to the core idea or to another idea that has already been written down in the mind map. You can see an example of a mind map that is partway through creation in figure 2.1.

在想法之间画线，清晰地展示它们之间的关系。你很快就会得到一个辐射状的图案，显示想法集群，其中内置了“父子”层次结构。有时“子”想法会成为新主要集群的中心——没关系！让你的思维导图变得混乱，然后跟随它的指引。思维导图的空间结构将帮助你注意到你忽略的可能性。如果你在互联网上搜索，你可以找到许多很棒的数字工具来帮助进行思维导图。

Draw lines between the ideas, clearly showing the relationships among them. You’ll soon have a radiating pattern showing clusters of ideas with a built-in hierarchy of “parent and child.” Sometimes a “child” idea will take over as the center of a new major cluster—that’s okay! Let your mind map get messy and follow where it leads you. Mind mapping’s spatial structure will help draw your attention to possibilities that you’re overlooking. You can find many great digital tools to help with mind mapping if you search the Internet.

自动化

Automatism

二十世纪初，一群被称为超现实主义者的艺术家对潜意识的新概念着迷，他们希望通过探索潜意识来获取知识、摆脱社会习俗的束缚以及创造新的艺术形式。他们开发了实现这一目标的技术，其中许多技术被他们描述为游戏。如果你对这种创造性的探索感兴趣，我强烈推荐Alastair Brotchie 和 Mel Gooding 合著的《超现实主义游戏书^》。2

In the early twentieth century, a group of artists known as the Surrealists became fascinated by the new idea of the unconscious mind, wanting to explore it in pursuit of knowledge, freedom from restrictive social convention, and new types of art. They developed techniques for doing so, many of which they described as games. If you’re interested in this type of creative exploration, I strongly recommend A Book of Surrealist Games by Alastair Brotchie and Mel Gooding.²

超现实主义者喜欢的一种技巧叫做自动化（来自单词“ automatic ”，意为“自发完成”）。要使用自动化，只需坐下来，拿一张纸和一支铅笔，或坐在电脑前，设置一个 4 分钟到一个小时之间的计时器。启动计时器，然后继续书写（或绘画，如果你喜欢）直到计时器用完。不要停顿或犹豫；强迫自己把脑海中想到的一切都记录下来。跟随你的意识流。如果你诚实地做到这一点，就会很容易。不要回顾或分析你正在写下或画的内容。

One technique the Surrealists liked was called automatism (from the word automatic, meaning “done spontaneously”). To use automatism, simply sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil, or at a computer, and set a timer for anywhere between four minutes and an hour. Start your timer and then keep writing (or drawing, if you prefer) until your timer runs out. Don’t pause or hesitate; force yourself to transcribe whatever comes into your mind. Follow your stream of consciousness. If you do this honestly, it will be easy. Don’t review or analyze what you’re writing down or drawing.

你写下的很多内容都是无稽之谈或平庸之作。没关系。你写或画的一些内容会非常个人化，可能会让你感到惊讶甚至震惊。重要的是，每个人都应该有权保留自动化练习的结果私密。您写下的一些东西会很有趣、很不寻常、很感人或很有影响力。这就是您一直在寻找的黄金。您可以将其用作头脑风暴或思维导图的起点。

A lot of what you set down will be nonsense or banal. That’s okay. Some of what you write or draw will be very personal and might surprise or even shock you. It’s important that everyone should have the right to keep the results of an automatism exercise private. Some of what you put down will be interesting, unusual, moving, or otherwise powerful. That’s the gold you’ve been in search of. You can use it as a starting point for a brainstorm or a mind map.

其他蓝天思维技巧

Other Blue Sky Thinking Techniques

这只是蓝天思维活动的一小部分。还有很多其他活动，比如 Tracy Fullerton 在《游戏设计工作坊》^第6 章中描述的“剪切” 。3您还可以使用日记、故事板、Wikipedia:Random 或您最喜欢的占卜技术。4^在整个项目过程中都要随身携带笔记本；它将记录您的想法、计划、草图和图表，但它也是涂鸦和自由联想的地方。如果您在线搜索“构思技巧”，您会找到更多蓝天思维提示。

That’s just a small selection of blue sky thinking activities. There are many others, like “cut up,” which Tracy Fullerton describes in chapter 6 of Game Design Workshop.³ You might also use journaling, storyboarding, Wikipedia:Random, or your favorite divination technique.⁴ Keep a notebook throughout your project; it will hold your ideas, plans, sketches, and diagrams, but it’s also a place to doodle and free associate. If you search online for “ideation techniques,” you’ll find many more prompts for blue sky thinking.

设计师、电子表格和列表的力量

Designers, Spreadsheets, and the Power of the List

游戏设计师在工作过程中会列出很多清单。原始想法清单、游戏机制和关卡清单、功能和内容清单、待办事项清单和任务清单。有些人比其他人更容易接受这种做法，但成为一名优秀的列表制作者是一项可以学习的技能，也是成为游戏设计师的一个很好的方法。

Game designers end up making a lot of lists in the course of their work. Lists of raw ideas, lists of game mechanics and levels, lists of features and content, to-do lists and task lists. Some people take to this more easily than others, but being a good list-maker is a learnable skill and a great way to get ahead as a game designer.

我在顽皮狗工作期间，我们使用的大多数设计文档都是电子表格。我第一次看到电子表格时，感到非常害怕！它看起来像是会计师的幻觉，我不知道该怎么用它。如今，我喜欢电子表格——它们是游戏设计师工具包中最强大的工具之一，也是快速轻松地组织信息的最佳方式。

Most of the design documents we used during my time at Naughty Dog were spreadsheets. The first time I saw a spreadsheet, I felt quite frightened! It looked like something from an accountant’s fever dream, and I couldn’t understand what to do with it. Today, I love spreadsheets—they are one of the most powerful tools in the game designer’s toolkit and the best way to organize information quickly and easily.

电子表格让您能够使用方框网格（称为单元格）轻松访问页面的垂直和水平尺寸。是的，游戏设计师花费大量时间制作列表，但实际上我们更经常制作带有行和列的交叉引用信息的表格。例如，一旦您列出了游戏中角色的名称，您就需要跟踪他们使用的动画、移动速度等等。表格是电子表格的强项。将数字列相加的公式很容易学习。使用条件格式对单元格中的信息进行颜色编码，可以让您快速直观地看到重要信息。观看有关如何使用电子表格的在线视频，很快您也会爱上电子表格。

Spreadsheets give you easy access to the vertical and horizontal dimensions of your page using a grid of boxes (called cells). Yes, game designers spend a lot of time making lists, but in fact we more often make tables with rows and columns of cross-referenced information. As soon as you have listed out the names of the characters in your game, for example, you’ll need to keep track of what animations they use, how fast they can move, and so on. Tables are what spreadsheets are good at. Formulas that add up columns of numbers are a snap to learn. Conditional formatting that color-codes the information in the cells lets you see what’s important, quickly and intuitively. Watch an online video about how to use spreadsheets, and soon you’ll love spreadsheets too.

“列表的力量”这个短语在对项目管理感兴趣的人中很流行。列表之所以有力量，是因为知识就是力量。我们经常查看的列表可以帮助我们将所有想法都记在脑子里。能够访问与游戏相关的最新列表（例如所有不同角色的列表，或所有团队合作的关键在于有能力让游戏的这一部分变得出色，并且以高效的方式完成它。在一个健康的团队中，权力必须共享，因此请始终将列表放在公共位置，并告诉您的队友它们在哪里。做一个保持列表更新的人——这表明您是一位负责任的设计师。在整个项目过程中，每天维护列表比在突然需要列表所含信息时必须更新列表要高效得多。

The phrase “the power of the list” is popular among people interested in project management. Lists have power because knowledge is power. Lists that we look at regularly help us keep all our ideas present in our minds. Having access to an up-to-date list of something relating to your game (like a list of all the different characters, or all the collectable objects in the game) is to have the power to make that part of the game excellent and to do it in an efficient way. Power must be shared in a healthy team, so always put your lists in a public place and tell your teammates where they are. Be the person who keeps lists current—it demonstrates that you’re a responsible designer. It’s much more efficient to maintain a list day to day throughout a project than to have to update it when the information it contains is suddenly needed.

清单可以帮助我们避免犯错。从航空公司员工到外科医生，每个人都会使用清单来防止危及生命的事故和错误，并让初级员工在发现问题时敢于直言。5^成为一个更好的清单记录员是制作更好游戏的一个简单而有效的方法。

Lists help us avoid making mistakes. Checklists are used by everyone from airline employees to surgeons to prevent life-threatening accidents and errors and to empower junior staff to speak up when they notice something going wrong.⁵ Becoming a better list-keeper is a simple and effective way to make better games.

人们有时认为创造力是一种神秘的过程，只有天生才华横溢的作者才能做到。我相信“尤里卡！”时刻的存在，那些灵光一闪的时刻，我们突然抓住了一些新的和伟大的东西。但我也相信托马斯·爱迪生的告诫是正确的，天才是“百分之一的灵感加上百分之九十九的汗水”。这就是为什么我们必须快速而大量地集思广益，从九十九个马马虎虎的想法中找出我们正在寻找的一个完美的想法。

People sometimes think of creativity as a mystical process practiced only by innately brilliant auteurs. I believe in the existence of eureka! moments, those flashes of inspiration where we suddenly seize upon something new and great. But I also believe in the truth of Thomas Edison’s admonition that genius is “one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” That’s why we have to brainstorm quickly and in quantity, to work through ninety-nine so-so ideas and find the one perfect idea we’re looking for.

创造力在我们的生活中无处不在，甚至在我们最平凡的行为中也无处不在，每个关心创造的人都可以获得创造力。创造力需要激情来推动它完成创造行为，所以要注意让你兴奋的事情。

Creativity is everywhere in our lives and in even the most mundane of our actions, and it’s accessible to everyone who cares to create. Creativity needs passion to push it through to the completion of the creative act, so take note of what you get excited about.

最后，如果你想在游戏设计上有所创新，不要因为某些想法不符合你已经熟悉的游戏机制而将其排除在外。相反，你可以考虑采用一个既简单又复杂的想法（“音乐品味”、“嫉妒”、“新年决心”），并使用我们将在接下来的三章中讨论的构思策略来探索它：研究和原型设计。

Finally, if you want to innovate in game design, don’t rule out ideas because they don’t fit onto the game mechanics that you’re already familiar with. Instead, consider taking an idea that is simple and complicated at the same time (“musical taste,” “jealousy,” “New Year’s resolution”) and exploring it using the ideation strategies that we’ll discuss in the next three chapters: research and prototyping.

2. 1.私人通信，2020 年 5 月 25 日。

3. 1.  Private communication, May 25, 2020.

4. 2. Brotchie 和 Gooding，《超现实主义游戏之书》。

5. 2.  Brotchie and Gooding, A Book of Surrealist Games.

6. 3. Fullerton，游戏设计工作室，第 4 版，179。

7. 3.  Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, 4th ed., 179.

8. 4. “Wikipedia:Random”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia :Random 。

9. 4.  “Wikipedia:Random,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Random.

10. 5.Don Sadler，“如何避免手术失误”，OR Today，2016 年 6 月 1 日，https://ortoday.com/how-to-avoid-surgical-errors/。

11. 5.  Don Sadler, “How to Avoid Surgical Errors,” OR Today, June 1, 2016, https://ortoday.com/how-to-avoid-surgical-errors/.

互联网研究

Research on the Internet

在互联网时代之前，我们必须去图书馆或购买大量书籍才能研究一款游戏。现在我们有了维基百科、谷歌和 3.66 亿个注册互联网域名，只需点击几下鼠标，我们就能获得大量信息。

Before the Internet era, we’d have to go to a library or buy a lot of books to research a game. Now that we have Wikipedia, Google, and the 366 million registered Internet domain names, we have an incredible wealth of information just a few clicks away.

我喜欢探索维基百科、Reddit 和 Google 图片，既是为了寻找可靠的知识和信息，也是为了寻找那些看似虚假、错误或荒谬的东西。如果你想要真实的事实，一定要仔细检查你的资料来源。你可以利用研究更深入地探究你通过头脑风暴发现的主题，并帮助你的思维导图有更多的分支。

I love to explore Wikipedia, Reddit, and Google Images, both for credible knowledge and information and for things that seem spurious, mistaken, or ridiculous. Be sure to double-check your sources if you want real facts. You can use research to dive more deeply into a subject that you’ve discovered through brainstorming and to help give your mind maps more branches.

形象研究

Image Research

除了基于文本的研究，我还非常喜欢图片搜索。我喜欢将图片保存到硬盘上的本地文件夹中，然后使用它们来激发团队之间的对话。图片通常比文本更快地传达信息，并且会给不同的人带来不同的想法，这在你尝试广泛探索时非常有用。

As well as text-based research, I’m a big fan of image searching. I like to save images into a local folder on my hard drive and then use them to spur conversation among the team. Images usually convey information much more quickly than text and will give different people different ideas, which is useful when you’re trying to explore widely.

收集到一组好的图片后，你可以将它们组合成一个情绪板，即围绕某个想法或主题排列的一页或一屏图片。两张看似毫无关联的图片放在一起，可能会引发全新的想法和感受，就像著名的库里绍夫效应一样。1^电影制作、营销和视频游戏设计等创意行业使用情绪板来快速有效地传达概念，并开启关于未来方向的讨论。使用 Microsoft Paint、Adobe Illustrator 或 Pinterest 等在线服务开始构建自己的情绪板或图像蒙太奇永远不会太早。

Once you’ve collected a good crop of images, you can assemble them into a mood board, a single page or screen of pictures arranged around a certain idea or theme. Putting two seemingly unconnected pictures next to each other can cause entirely new ideas and feelings to emerge, as in the famous Kuleshov effect.¹ Creative industries like moviemaking, marketing, and videogame design use mood boards to convey a concept quickly and effectively and to open up discussion about future direction. It’s almost never too early to start building your own mood board or image montage, using Microsoft Paint, Adobe Illustrator, or an online service like Pinterest.

不要忽视图书馆

Don’t Neglect the Library

在互联网上进行研究固然很好，但讽刺的是，看似开放的互联网很容易让你陷入先入为主的无形壁垒中。因此，在研究过程中，一定要去当地的图书馆。熟练的图书管理员和实体藏书可以引导你找到你原本无法发现的想法、事实和艺术品。

Research on the Internet is great, but, ironically, the seemingly wide-open Internet can easily keep you inside the invisible walls of your preconceptions. So make sure you head to a local library as part of your research process. A skilled librarian and a physical collection of books can lead you toward ideas, facts, and artworks that you wouldn’t otherwise discover.

实地考察

Field Trips

一些最出色的研究往往发生在工作室、家或办公室之外。皮克斯以前往不同寻常的遥远地方进行研究而闻名——2009 年电影《飞屋环游记》中的超凡世界天堂瀑布就是在访问委内瑞拉卡奈马国家公园的特普伊台地后创作的。

Some of the best research happens outside your studio, home, or office. Pixar is famous for their research trips to unusual, far-flung places—the unearthly world of Paradise Falls in their 2009 film Up was created with help from a visit to the tepui mesas of Canaima National Park in Venezuela.

但你不必花大笔钱就可以为你的游戏进行实地考察研究。你很可能可以在当地找到灵感和知识，为你的设计和游戏打下坚实的基础。

But you don’t have to have a big budget to do great field trip research for your game. Chances are there is somewhere local you can go to find inspiration and knowledge that informs your design and grounds your game in reality.

记录你在周围世界中看到的过程和系统。日常生活中的哪些方面可以成为游戏机制、环境和故事叙述的有趣部分？观察人们是任何实地研究旅行的重要组成部分。带上你的笔记本，把所有事情都写下来。在不侵犯任何人隐私的情况下拍照。必要时征求许可。向你每天看到但从未详细观察过的世界部分介绍自己。迷失在你自己的城市里，用全新的眼光看待熟悉的事物。

Take note of the processes and systems that you see in the world around you. What aspects of daily life could become interesting parts of your game’s mechanics, environments, and storytelling? People-watching is a great part of any research field trip. Take your notebook with you and write everything down. Without invading anyone’s privacy, take photos. Ask for permission where necessary. Introduce yourself to parts of the world that you see every day but have never looked at in detail. Get lost in your own town and look at the familiar with fresh eyes.

采访

Interviews

进行采访是寻找创意和激发创造力的绝佳方式。在本书后面，我们将探讨将人置于设计过程中心的重要性，使用游戏测试和其他技术。这就是 Tracy Fullerton 所说的以游戏为中心的游戏设计，它是设计中可以追溯到历史的人文主义传统的一部分。2^设计中的人文主义可以追溯到十九世纪工艺美术运动、二十世纪建筑师如弗里登斯列·汉德瓦瑟以及荒川和玛德琳·金斯团队的作品，以及硅谷创意机构 IDEO 在以人为本的设计方面的创新，等等。

Conducting interviews can be an excellent way to find ideas and ignite your creativity. Later in this book we’ll look at the importance of placing people at the center of your design process, using playtesting and other techniques. This is what Tracy Fullerton calls playcentric game design, and it is part of a humanist tradition in design that reaches back into history.² Humanism in design can be seen in the nineteenth century Arts and Crafts movement, in the work of twentieth-century architects like Friedensreich Hundertwasser and the team of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, and in the innovations made in human-centered design at the Silicon Valley creative agency IDEO, to name but a few.

在你还没有游戏创意之前，你就可以开始与人们讨论游戏设计。许多伟大的设计项目都是从采访人们的生活、想法和感受开始的。选择你想要为其设计游戏的人，询问他们关于日常活动、休闲时间、兴趣，甚至希望、需求和恐惧的问题。记下他们的回答，或者录制采访的音频或视频。你会得到大量令人惊讶的有趣想法——其中一个可能会激发你下一个游戏项目的诞生。

You can start talking to people about your game’s design before you even have an idea for your game. Many great design projects start with interviewing people about their lives, their thoughts, and their feelings. Choose someone you’d like to design a game for, and ask them questions about their daily activities, their leisure time, their interests, even their hopes, needs, and fears. Write down their responses or make an audio or video recording of the interview. You’ll get back a wealth of surprising, interesting ideas—one of which might spark the genesis of your next game project.

阴影

Shadowing

有时仅通过与人交谈很难获得关于他们的良好信息——我们都有偏见，会扭曲我们的想法和言论，人们常常忽略可能令我们作为设计师感兴趣的细节。

Sometimes it’s hard to get good information about people just by talking to them—we all have biases that skew what we think and say, and people often overlook details that could be interesting to us as designers.

跟踪研究让我们能够深入了解人们的生活、兴趣和喜好。这是一种研究技术，起源于 20 世纪 50 年代的管理学，是设计和咨询公司 IDEO 以人为本的设计实践的一部分。跟踪研究包括在获得某人许可的情况下陪伴他们度过一天。我们观察被跟踪的人并做笔记、录音和录像，并收集他们在某些地方和活动上花费的时间等数据。通过观察人们的生活，谨慎地、不受干扰地观察他们，我们可以更深入地了解他们的行为、观点和动机。

Shadowing gives us a way to dig deeper into people’s lives, interests, and preferences. It is a research technique that has its roots in management studies in the 1950s and was developed as part of the human-centered design practice of design and consulting firm IDEO. Shadowing involves accompanying someone, with their permission, as they go through their day. We observe the person we’re shadowing and take notes, make audio and video recordings, and gather data such as how much time they spend in locations and activities. By seeing people going about their lives, observing them discreetly and without interference, we can gain a deeper understanding of their behavior, opinions, and motivations.

跟踪还能帮助我们了解个人、朋友和家人如何利用玩游戏的闲暇时间——他们在玩游戏时如何相互联系和互动，无论是一起玩还是一个人玩，其他人在看。合作和竞争游戏的新想法可能会以这种方式出现。跟踪在设计旨在为玩家健康带来积极结果的“健康游戏”以及设计“严肃游戏”、“应用游戏”和教育游戏方面很有用。它也可能有助于实验游戏设计师和艺术游戏制作者的极富创新性的工作。

Shadowing can also help us see how individuals, friends, and families use their game-playing leisure time—how they relate to and interact with each other when they’re playing, whether they’re playing together or if one person is playing and others are watching. New ideas for cooperative and competitive games might emerge in this way. Shadowing is useful in the design of “health games” designed to create positive outcomes in the health of their players and in the design of “serious games,” “applied games,” and educational games. It could also be helpful in the wildly innovative work of experimental game designers and art game makers.

研究笔记

Research Notes

确保以研究笔记的形式记录您的发现。在互联网上进行研究时，很容易陷入点击恍惚状态，最后除了浏览器历史记录外一无所获。花点时间将文本、图像和链接复制粘贴到研究笔记文档中，让您自己和您的团队在项目过程中以及遇到困难并需要帮助时可以参考灵感。一个最初看似不相关的想法，后来可能会被证明是有用的，甚至是变革性的。

Make sure to keep a record of your findings in the form of research notes. Doing research on the Internet, it’s easy to go into a click-trance and emerge with nothing to show for it but your browser history. Take the time to copy-paste text, images, and links into a research notes document, giving yourself and your team something you can refer back to throughout the course of your project and whenever you’re stuck and need some inspiration. An idea that didn’t seem relevant early on might prove to be useful or even transformational later.

研究应该是你构思阶段的重要组成部分，你可以在 IDEO 方法卡组中发现更多蓝天思维和研究技术。设计机构 IDEO 的这个实用、鼓舞人心且极具创新性的工具有 51 种技术可以“让人们成为工作的中心！” ³ Situation Lab 屡获殊荣的“想象游戏” The Thing from the Future，由我的 USC Games 同事、已故的 Jeff Watson 和卡内基梅隆大学设计教授 Stuart Candy 设计，是另一个很棒的卡组工具，专为设计师和其他希望就未来进行有趣和深思熟虑的对话的人而设计。⁴ Mary Flanagan 和 Helen Nissenbaum 的Grow-a-Game卡片帮助设计师更有意识地将人类价值观融入他们的游戏系统中。⁵

Research should be a rich part of your ideation phase, and you can discover many more blue sky thinking and research techniques in the IDEO Method Cards deck. This useful, inspirational, and highly innovative tool from design agency IDEO has fifty-one techniques to “keep people at the center of your work!”³ Situation Lab’s award-winning “imagination game,” The Thing from the Future, designed by my USC Games colleague, the late Jeff Watson, and Carnegie Mellon University design professor Stuart Candy, is another great card deck tool, created for designers and others looking to have playful and thoughtful conversations about the future.⁴ Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum’s Grow-a-Game cards help designers be more intentional about the ways in which they integrate human values into their game-based systems.⁵

对于我们中的一些人来说，研究是如此令人愉快，以至于它很容易占用我们所有的构思时间。限制你花在研究上的时间，这样你就不会在你将发现的兔子洞里花太长时间。尝试在自由形式的探索和对特定主题的更有条理的调查之间找到一个良好的平衡。不断回顾你最初研究的概念，并尽量保持正轨。

For some of us, research is so enjoyable that it can easily eat up all our ideation time. Set limits on the time you spend researching, so that you don’t spend too long down the rabbit holes you’ll discover. Try to find a good balance between free-form exploration and more structured investigations of particular topics. Keep referring back to the concept you were originally researching and try to stay on track.

你不必把所有的时间都花在目标上；不受束缚的思考也具有巨大的美感和价值。但要小心不要在原地打转。向外、向上、向内或向下探索，但要定期检查自己是否充分利用了时间。如果你做好了研究，你就会创造出基于我们共同现实的美妙新体验。世界是一位伟大的老师。让它告诉你一些关于你的游戏的东西。

Not all your time has to be goal-directed; there is great beauty and value in untrammeled thought. Just be wary of swimming in circles. Explore outward, upward, inward, or downward, but check in regularly to see if you’re making good use of your time. If you do your research well, you’ll create wonderful new experiences that are grounded in our shared realities. The world is a great teacher. Let it tell you something about your game.

2. 1 . “库列绍夫效应”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect。

3. 1.  “Kuleshov Effect,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_effect.

4. 2.Fullerton，《游戏设计工作坊》，第4版，16。

5. 2.  Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, 4th ed., 16.

6. 3 . IDEO产品开发，IDEO方法卡。

7. 3.  IDEO Product Development, IDEO Method Cards.

8. 4. Jeff Watson 和 Stuart Candy，《来自未来的东西》，2017 年，Situation Lab，http://situationlab.org/project/the-thing-from-the-future/。

9. 4.  Jeff Watson and Stuart Candy, The Thing from The Future, 2017, Situation Lab, http://situationlab.org/project/the-thing-from-the-future/.

10. 5. Mary Flanagan 和 Helen Nissenbaum，“Grow-A-Game：概述。”《Values at Play》，https://www.valuesatplay.org/grow-a-game-overview。

11. 5.  Mary Flanagan and Helen Nissenbaum, “Grow-A-Game: Overview.” Values at Play, https://www.valuesatplay.org/grow-a-game-overview.

游戏机制、动词和玩家活动

Game Mechanics, Verbs, and Player Activities

游戏机制是游戏中构成其功能和互动性的规则和流程。它们控制着玩家可以做什么以及游戏如何开始、展开和最终结束。游戏机制使游戏设计师通常所说的游戏动词成为可能——“行动词”。例如，你的玩家角色可能会移动、行动、说话或购买。

Game mechanics are the rules and processes in a game that make up its functioning and interactivity. They govern what the player can do and how the game starts, unfolds, and eventually ends. Game mechanics make possible what game designers often call the verbs of a game—the “doing words.” For example, your player-character might move, act, speak, or buy.

一些游戏动词更“原子化”——在某些类型的游戏中，按下按钮让角色跳跃是一个基本的动词原子。其他游戏动词可能更“分子化”，由这些动词原子组组成。例如，探索是一个游戏动词，它可能由原子动词行走、跳跃、爬升、爬行和移动游戏摄像机组成。当然，就像原子由亚原子粒子组成一样，原子游戏动词可以进一步分解。攀爬可能由亚原子游戏动词向左到达、向右到达、放下、测力跳跃等组成。

Some game verbs are more “atomic”—pressing a button to make a character jump is a basic verb atom in certain types of games. Other game verbs might be more “molecular” and are made up of groups of these verb atoms. For example, explore is a game verb that might be made up of the atomic verbs walk, jump, climb, crawl, and move the game camera. Of course, just like an atom is made up of subatomic particles, atomic game verbs can be broken down further. Climb might be made up of the subatomic game verbs reach left, reach right, drop down, dyno jump, and so on.

玩家活动是我们用来描述玩家如何使用特定动词的术语。玩家活动可能是在第一人称游戏中使用 WASD 键、鼠标和 Shift 键四处寻找出口。它可能是通过点击触摸屏尝试在三消游戏中的网格中连续获得三个相同的物品；或者它可能是通过点击 Twine 游戏中的链接第二次浏览故事，尝试找到不同的结局。玩家活动是游戏机制、动词和叙事以及玩家的感知、想法、行动和意图相结合的结果。

Player activity is a term we use to describe how the player uses a particular verb. A player activity might be running around looking for the exit in a first-person game using the WASD keys, the mouse, and the Shift key. It might be trying to get three of the same items in a row in the grid of a match-three game by tapping on a touchscreen; or it might be navigating through a story for the second time, trying to find a different ending by clicking on the links in a Twine game. Player activities are the result of the combination of your game’s mechanics, verbs, and narrative, along with the player’s perceptions, thoughts, actions, and intent.

和许多游戏设计师一样，我倾向于交替使用这些术语，但我认为在原型设计时将机制和动词作为玩家活动来讨论，会提醒我们将玩家的行为和体验放在讨论的首位。玩家活动通常按循环顺序排列，我们将在第 10 章中更多地讨论游戏的“核心循环”。当我们对游戏进行更深入的分析时，我们可能会讨论玩家活动的模式，我们会看到不同的玩家群体使用相同的机制和动词来表达截然不同的游戏风格。最著名的玩家活动模式识别是理查德·巴特尔 (Richard Bartle) 著名的玩家类型杀手、成就者、社交者和探险者^。2

Like many game designers, I tend to use these terms interchangeably, but I think that talking about mechanics and verbs as player activities when we’re prototyping reminds us to keep the player’s actions and experiences in the foreground of the discussion. Player activities are often sequenced into loops, and we’ll look more at the “core loop” of a game in chapter 10. When we get into a deeper analysis of a game, we might talk about patterns of player activity, where we see different groups of players using the same mechanics and verbs to express widely different styles of play. The most famous identification of patterns of player activity is Richard Bartle’s famous player types of killer, achiever, socializer, and explorer.²

对于你制作的每个原型，问自己：

For each prototype you make, ask yourself:

•    我在这里设计了哪些玩家活动的原型？
•    What player activity am I prototyping here?
•    我正在研究哪些游戏动词？
•    What game verbs am I investigating?
•    这次玩家活动产生了什么样的体验？
•    What kind of experience does this player activity produce?
•    玩家活动具有什么样的基调或情绪？
•    What tone or mood does the player activity have?
•    我现在可以利用这项玩家活动做哪些有趣的游戏和故事？
•    What interesting gameplay and story things can I do with this player activity right now?
•    如果我有时间设计不同的情况和场景来使用这项玩家活动，我可以用它做多少事情？
•    How much could I do with this player activity if I had the time to devise different situations and scenarios in which to use it?
•    我试图用这个原型来回答什么问题？
•    What question am I trying to answer with this prototype?

最后一点非常重要。以《孢子与地球入门》而闻名的设计师 Chaim Gingold给出了许多关于制作原型的极好建议。他为 Tracy Fullerton 的书《游戏设计研讨会》写了一篇名为“灾难性原型和其他故事”的文章，您也可以在网上找到它。Chaim 建议我们设计每个原型来回答我们提出的问题：“例如，您可能正在考虑一群鱼的基于鼠标的控制方案。你的问题是：我如何用鼠标控制这些鱼？” Chaim 指出了原型设计的其他好处，例如使用原型说服队友一个想法是可行的。他还给出了快速经济地工作的建议，不要试图一次做太多事情，并充分利用我们的时间。Chaim 的文章很精彩 - 现在就去读吧^。3

This last point is very important. The designer Chaim Gingold, who is known for his work on Spore and Earth Primer, has a lot of excellent advice to give about making prototypes. He wrote an essay called “Catastrophic Prototyping and Other Stories” for Tracy Fullerton’s book Game Design Workshop, and you can also find it online. Chaim advises us to design each prototype to answer a question we’re asking: “For example, you might be thinking about mouse-based control schemes for a school of fish. Your question is: how do I control these fish with a mouse?” Chaim points out other benefits of prototyping, like using prototypes to persuade teammates that an idea will work. He also gives advice about working quickly and economically, not trying to do too much at once, and using our time well. Chaim’s essay is excellent—go read it now.³

三种原型设计

Three Kinds of Prototyping

根据您的背景，您可能对原型设计有强烈的先入之见。我想通过提供三种不同的原型设计来改变您的先入之见：好玩的原型设计、物理原型设计和数字原型设计。

Depending on your background, you might have strong preconceptions about prototyping. I want to shake them up by offering you three different kinds: playful prototyping, physical prototyping, and digital prototyping.

物理原型

Physical Prototyping

Tracy Fullerton 在她的《游戏设计工作坊》一书中描述了以游戏为中心的游戏设计流程的最伟大创新之一，即使用物理原型。物理原型设计涉及棋盘游戏、纸牌游戏和其他类型的非数字游戏活动（如体育或操场游戏）的创作。这当然可以设计出出色的棋盘游戏、纸牌游戏和体育游戏，但它也是设计数字游戏的有效方法。例如，BumbleBear Games 的出色实时战略平台视频游戏Killer Queen最初就是作为物理团队游戏进行原型设计的^。4

One of the greatest innovations of the playcentric game design process that Tracy Fullerton describes in her book Game Design Workshop is the use of physical prototypes. Physical prototyping involves the creation of board games, card games, and other kinds of nondigital play activity like a sport or a playground game. This can, of course, lead to the design of great board games, card games, and sports, but it is also a powerful way of designing a digital game. For example, BumbleBear Games’ superb real-time strategy platform videogame Killer Queen was initially prototyped as a physical team game.⁴

特蕾西告诉我，她开始使用物理原型设计来帮助设计师摆脱现有游戏类型已解决的问题，探索创新的新游戏设计空间。事实证明，这是一种非常强大的技术，物理原型设计现在已成为南加州大学游戏课程中游戏设计教学方式的基石。

Tracy told me that she started using physical prototyping to help designers break away from the solved problems of existing genres of play and explore innovative new game design spaces. It turned out to be such a powerful technique that physical prototyping is now a bedrock of the way that game design is taught in the USC Games program.

如何制作物理原型

How to Make a Physical Prototype

制作物理原型很容易，而且可以使用各种材料。最常用的材料是纸张（复印纸也可以）和钢笔、铅笔或蜡笔。您不必擅长绘画；火柴人也可以。制作时，您需要胶带或胶水和剪刀。索引卡很有用，用途广泛；卡片纸的刚性使它们既可以用作扑克牌，也可以用作游戏棋子和环境元素的构建材料。一些塑料、木材或玻璃计数器非常适合代表游戏棋子或资源令牌。经常使用便签。

It’s easy to make a physical prototype, and you can use a wide range of materials in building one. The most commonly used elements are paper—copier paper will work fine—and pens, pencils, or crayons. You don’t have to be able to draw well; stick figures are fine. For construction, you’ll need tape or glue and scissors. Index cards are useful and versatile; the rigidity of the cardstock makes them equally useful as playing cards or as construction material for game pieces and environmental elements. Some plastic, wood, or glass counters are good for representing game pieces or resource tokens. Sticky notes are often used.

想一想您想要研究的玩家活动。它可能是用叉子捡起一片水果、在沙尘暴中跋涉，或者按颜色对魔法珠进行分类。您想要表示的底层系统是什么？您如何将它们抽象为棋盘游戏和纸牌游戏中有效的惯例和表示？通过这种方式，您可以使用物理原型技术开始研究构成游戏的动词和游戏机制。

Think about a player activity that you want to investigate. It might be picking up a piece of fruit with a fork, trudging through a sandstorm, or sorting magic beads by their color. What are the underlying systems that you want to represent? How can you abstract them into the conventions and representations that work in board games and card games? In this way, you can use physical prototyping techniques to begin to investigate the verbs and game mechanics that will make up your game.

您还可以开始实际制作更复杂的玩家活动模式的原型。如果您想制作一款角色探索洞穴系统的游戏，您可以制作一个简单的棋盘游戏，其中有一条可供移动的轨道，里面充满了塌方、急转弯和水下部分。如果您想制作一款关于国际金融世界的游戏，您可以将索引卡标记为股票、债券和现金，并开始设计一个合法交易和可疑活动的系统。

You can also start to physically prototype more complex patterns of player activity. If you want to make a game where a character explores a system of caves, you could make a simple board game with a track to move along, full of cave-ins, switchbacks, and underwater sections. If you want to make a game about the world of international finance, you could mark up index cards as stocks, bonds, and cash, and begin to design a system of legitimate trades and shady activity.

发明是物理原型设计的当务之急。您可能是一位经验丰富的棋盘游戏设计师，能够轻松地在玩家活动、动词和物理游戏和数字游戏的机制中找到相似之处。如果您和我一样，作为棋盘游戏设计师的经验较少，那么您的流程可能会更松散。您的物理原型甚至可能感觉更像是好玩的原型。正如 Tracy Fullerton 提醒我的那样，“重要的是要记住，原型设计始终是为了回答问题，因此如果您没有可以通过物理原型回答的问题，那么请使用其他格式！”

Invention is the order of the day in physical prototyping. You might be an experienced board game designer who can easily find parallels in the player activities, verbs, and mechanics of physical games and digital games. If, like me, you have less experience as a board game designer, your process might be looser. Your physical prototypes might even feel more like playful prototypes. As Tracy Fullerton reminded me, “It’s important to remember that prototyping is always about answering questions, so if you don’t have a question that will be answered by a physical prototype, then use another format!”

测试物理原型

Playtesting a Physical Prototype

一旦你构建了物理原型，就到了本书中最重要的活动，也是我们会反复回顾的活动。是时候进行游戏测试了。

Once you’ve built your physical prototype, it’s time for the most important activity in this book, and one that we’ll come back to over and over again. It’s time to playtest.

游戏测试是健康游戏设计实践的基础。我将在本书后面详细介绍我的游戏测试方法，但现在，我希望您尽可能多地让其他人玩您的实体原型。不要太担心原型的呈现方式：只要人们可以阅读您的文字、理解您使用的符号并处理游戏部件，您就可以开始了。

Playtesting is the foundation of a healthy game design practice. I’ll describe my approach to playtesting in great detail later in this book, but for now, I want you to get other people to play your physical prototype as often and as early as you can. Don’t worry too much about the presentation of your prototype: as long as people can read your writing, understand the symbols you’ve used, and handle the playing pieces, you’re ready to start.

写出游戏规则，这样玩家无需与你交谈就能学会。写出规则并进行“规则测试”是每个游戏设计师早期教育的重要组成部分。它能让我们了解系统的复杂性、我们在传达游戏设计理念时面临的挑战，以及游戏的每个方面如何可以被解读。你可以使用人机交互学科中的“绿野仙踪”方法，你（设计师）可以代替计算机在后台运行游戏，提供信息并代表游戏采取行动。

Write out the rules of the game so that your players can learn it without talking to you. Doing this and then conducting “rules tests” is an important part of every game designer’s early education. It develops our understanding of the complexity of systems, the challenges we face in communicating game design ideas, and how every aspect of a game is open to interpretation. You might use the “Wizard of Oz” method from the academic discipline of human-computer interaction, where you (the designer) stand in for the computer that could be running the game in the background, giving information and taking actions on behalf of the game.

当你观察你的游戏测试者时，仔细写下你的观察结果。他们对游戏中可以做什么和不能做什么有什么了解？然后他们会尝试什么做什么？他们不明白什么？你的游戏测试员对什么感到兴奋，什么让他们感到沮丧？什么让他们发笑或感到悲伤？他们还表现出什么其他情绪？你的游戏测试员似乎想反复做哪些活动，他们又不愿意尝试哪些活动？

As you watch your playtesters, carefully write down your observations. What do they understand about what they can and can’t do in the game? What do they then try to do? What do they fail to understand? What do your playtesters get excited about, and what makes them frustrated? What makes them laugh or feel sad? What other emotions do they show? What kind of activities do your playtesters seem to want to do over and over, and what are they reluctant to try?

迭代物理原型    物理原型设计的一个优点是速度快。只需用笔或剪刀几下就可以对设计进行根本性的更改。你不太可能仅仅因为投入了时间并产生了感情就坚持设计中不起作用的方面。这一点至关重要，因为几乎每次游戏测试后你都必须做的就是迭代设计。添加、删除和修改内容，同时寻求改进设计。什么才是改进？你可以自由决定，但必须承认游戏测试的结果。

Iterating on Your Physical Prototype    One great thing about physical prototyping is that it’s quick. You can make fundamental changes to your design with a few strokes of your pen or snips of your scissors. You’re less likely to hold on to an aspect of your design that isn’t working just because you invested time in creating it and have become emotionally attached. This is crucial, because what you must do after nearly every playtest is iterate on your design. Add, remove, and alter things, all the while looking to improve your design. What constitutes an improvement? You are free to decide, but you must acknowledge the results of the playtest.

我有时会遇到一些人，他们认为游戏测试很糟糕，因为它会“降低”游戏设计的质量。这种想法是完全错误的。在游戏设计领域，没有什么比玩家和游戏之间无中介的接触更现实的了。玩家永远不会“玩错”，也很少“只是不明白”。（这些是人们在设计不成功时有时会找的借口。）玩家的行为和体验是游戏设计质量的真实表达，也是任何游戏设计师所能拥有的对其工作的最佳表现。正如我曾经听到游戏设计师兼教育家约翰·夏普所说的那样：“游戏设计就像脱口秀：设计师和喜剧演员可以立即知道某件事是否成功。”

I sometimes encounter people who think that playtesting is bad because it “dumbs down” a game’s design. Thinking like this could not be more wrong. There is no greater reality in the world of game design than an unmediated encounter between a player and a game. The player can never be “playing it wrong” and is rarely “just not getting it.” (These are excuses that people sometimes make when their designs aren’t working.) The player’s actions and experiences are authentic expressions of the quality of a game’s design, and the best representation of their work that any game designer can have. As I once heard the game designer and educator John Sharp put it: “Game design is like stand-up comedy: the designer and the comedian immediately know whether something has worked or not.”

然而，游戏设计师绝不能盲目地追随或被动地回应玩家在游戏测试中的行为或玩家在游戏中想要的东西。熟练的设计师会学会根据他们的创作目标来解释游戏测试的结果，而你可以根据游戏测试的结果和你的目标来决定游戏设计的未来方向。

However, game designers should never blindly follow or reactively respond to what players do in a playtest or seem to want in a game. Skillful designers learn to interpret the results of a playtest in the context of their creative goals, and you are at liberty to determine the future course of your game’s design, in the light of the results of a playtest, based on your goals.

人们经常建议游戏设计师在游戏测试中“追求乐趣”，如果你追求的是乐趣，那么这是个很好的建议。我喜欢游戏中的乐趣，喜欢思考是什么让游戏变得有趣，我认为几乎每个人都认为玩得开心是他们幸福和幸福的核心。但并不是每个人都以同样的方式获得乐趣，游戏不必是传统意义上的乐趣；也许它们根本就不需要有趣。我最喜欢的一些游戏，比如 Liz Ryerson 的《Problem Attic》，故意拒绝提供我们从其他游戏中获得的传统类型的愉悦乐趣^。5

Game designers are often advised to “follow the fun” in a playtest, and that’s great advice, if it’s fun that you’re after. I love fun in games, I love thinking about what makes a game fun, and I think that almost every human being finds having fun to be central to their happiness and well-being. But not everyone has fun in the same way, and games don’t have to be fun in a traditional sense; maybe they don’t have to be fun at all. Some of my favorite games, like Liz Ryerson’s Problem Attic, deliberately refuse to provide the traditional type of pleasurable fun that we get from other games.⁵

在游戏测试中，明确你的创作目标很重要，这样你才能朝着正确的方向进行迭代。这在我们流程的后期会变得越来越重要。在制作原型时，这是一个很好的考虑，但不是至关重要的。就目前而言，如果你原地打转或有点迷失方向也没关系，只要你在制作和学习就行。

It’s important in a playtest to be clear about your creative goals, so that you can iterate in the right direction. This will become increasingly important later in our process. While you’re prototyping, it’s a good consideration but not crucial. For now, it’s okay if you spin in circles or get lost a little bit, as long as you’re making and learning.

这就是为什么将游戏棋子放在你面前的桌子上是如此好：它让你正在探索的想法走向世界，在那里它们可以被更清楚地看到。你可以更轻松地挑选出好的，并在其基础上进行构建或修改。

That’s why the physical fact of game pieces on a table in front of you is so good: it gets the ideas you’re exploring out into the world, where they can be seen more clearly. You can pick out the good ones more easily and build upon them or revise them.

整个开发过程中的物理原型设计    物理原型有助于在构思阶段开始游戏设计，因为它可以帮助您意外发现想要使用的核心游戏机制、叙事和美学。但物理原型在整个预生产和完整生产过程中也很有用，只要可以使用物理原型技术快速、轻松、廉价或彻底地研究开放的设计问题即可。

Physical Prototyping throughout Development    Physical prototypes are good for getting a game design started during the ideation phase, by helping you make sometimes unexpected discoveries about the core game mechanics, narrative, and aesthetics you want to use. But physical prototyping is valuable throughout preproduction and full production too, whenever an open design question can be investigated quickly, easily, cheaply, or thoroughly using physical prototyping techniques.

策略游戏（玩家操纵资源系统）在开发的每个阶段都非常适合物理原型设计。动作游戏和叙事体验的关卡和场景可以通过物理原型轻松快速地模拟出来，这使我们能够回答有关玩家在空间中的流动、视线和资源可用性的详细问题。这使得物理原型在您获得游戏的可运行数字版本后很长时间内都很有用。您可以在进行游戏的“微观设计”时使用物理原型设计（有关这方面的更多信息，请参见第 18 章）。

Strategy games, where the player manipulates systems of resources, lend themselves very easily to physical prototyping at every stage of development. The levels and scenarios of action games and narrative experiences can be mocked-up easily and quickly with physical prototypes, allowing us to answer detailed questions about the player’s flow through space, line of sight, and resource availability. This makes physical prototypes useful long after you’ve got a working digital version of your game. You can use physical prototyping whenever you’re working on the “micro design” of a game (more about this in chapter 18).

我相信几乎所有类型的游戏都可以从创造性地使用物理原型中受益。您必须自己决定物理原型对您的项目有多大用处，以及何时有用。

It’s my belief that almost every type of game can benefit from the inventive use of physical prototyping. You’ll have to decide for yourself how much physical prototyping is useful for your project, and when it’s useful.

数字样机    如果您的目标是制作数字游戏，那么数字原型设计将为构思过程提供强大的下一步，并将直接指导您设计和构建游戏。

Digital Prototyping    If your goal is to make a digital game, then digital prototyping provides a supercharged next step in the ideation process and will lead you directly toward designing and building your game.

概括地说，数字原型设计是使用软件制作可在计算机上运行的游戏原型的过程。您的数字原型可能在个人计算机、手机、平板电脑或游戏机上运行，​​可能带有屏幕和音频输出。它可能使用键盘、鼠标或游戏控制器作为界面，或者使用其他类型的输入：语音识别、注视跟踪或特殊的 alt 控制器。或者它可能在其他类型的计算平台上运行，例如智能手表甚至医疗植入物。您用来构建原型的软件可能易于使用，具有拖放界面，也可能更复杂，需要一些编程知识。

Stated in a general way, digital prototyping is the process of using software to make game prototypes that run on a computer. Maybe your digital prototype runs on a personal computer, a phone, a tablet, or a game console, probably with a screen and audio output. It might use a keyboard, mouse, or game controller for an interface, or some other kind of input: voice recognition, gaze-tracking, or a special alt-controller. Or it might run on some other kind of computing platform, like a smartwatch or even a medical implant. Maybe the software you use to build the prototype is easy to use, with a drag-and-drop interface, or maybe it’s more complex and requires some knowledge of programming.

在所有这些情况下，我们都将使用与制作好玩的原型和物理原型相同的指导原则：我们首先只关注一个玩家活动，尝试找到一些有效且我们想要保留的东西。

In all these cases, we will use the same guidelines that we used for making playful prototypes and physical prototypes: we’ll focus on just one player activity at first, trying to find something that works and that we want to keep.

要制作数字原型，您需要具备一些数字游戏开发方面的先决条件。也许不是很多，但至少是一些。为您提供这种能力超出了本书的范围，但我可以为您提供一些关于如何开始学习数字游戏开发的指导，我将在第 5 章中这样做。

To make a digital prototype, you need some preexisting ability with digital game development. Maybe not a lot, but some. Providing you with that ability is outside the scope of this book, but I can give you some pointers on how to start learning digital game development, and I’ll do so in chapter 5.

每个游戏开发者都是游戏设计师

Every Game Developer Is a Game Designer

在结束本章之前，我想先跟大家解释一下一些术语。你可能已经注意到，我从讨论游戏设计（我在本章的大部分时间里都在使用这个术语）转到了游戏开发。它们是同一件事吗？它们非常相似，但我认为有必要区分一下这两个术语。

To close out this chapter, I’d like to get some terminology straight with you. You might have noticed me switch from talking about game design, a term I’ve used throughout most of this chapter, to mentioning game development. Are they the same thing? They’re very similar, but I think it’s worth distinguishing between the terms.

游戏设计是组成游戏的元素的抽象模式，这些元素会为玩家带来良好的体验。游戏设计师关注的是游戏的概念化和规划过程，尽管这种规划与游戏的构建紧密相连，很难将规划与构建区分开来，正如我们将在本书中看到的那样。

A game’s design is the abstract pattern of elements that make up the game in a way that will produce a good experience for the player. Game designers are concerned with the process of conceptualizing and planning a game, although that planning is tied up with the building of the game in a way that makes it hard to disentangle the planning from the building, as we’ll see throughout this book.

当我们谈论开发数字游戏时，我们指的是使用软件工具、编写代码、制作艺术和音频资产、创建动画和视觉效果以及将所有内容整合成玩家可以打开和玩的东西的过程。因此，游戏开发者可以是艺术家、动画师、软件工程师、音频设计师、作曲家、游戏设计师、作家、用户体验设计师、制作人、质量保证专业人员，也可以属于其他学科。大多数游戏开发者在团队中都会扮演一些主要角色，例如环境艺术家或游戏程序员。有些人的头衔是游戏设计师，他们的角色通常是产生和收集设计理念，并确定游戏的设计——可能是关卡设计和系统设计。

When we talk about developing a digital game, we mean the process of using software tools, writing code, making art and audio assets, creating animations and visual effects, and tying everything together into something that a player can open and play. So a game developer could be an artist, animator, software engineer, audio designer, composer, game designer, writer, user experience designer, producer, quality assurance professional, or could belong to some other discipline. Most game developers will have some primary role on a team, like environment artist or gameplay programmer. Some people have the job title of game designer, and their role is usually to generate and gather design ideas, and to lock down designs for the game—maybe level design and systems designs.

我相信，每一位游戏开发者——无论他们是艺术家、声音设计师、动画师还是程序员——也都是游戏设计师，因为他们在工作中做出的即时决策对游戏设计有着根本性的影响。“魔鬼藏在细节中”，或者“上帝藏在细节中”，也许取决于细节给你带来了多少麻烦。正如设计师 Ray 和 Charles Eames 曾经说过的：“细节不是细节。它们成就了产品。” ⁶

I believe that every game developer—whether they are an artist, sound designer, animator, or programmer—is also a game designer, because the moment-to-moment decisions they make as they carry out their work have a fundamental impact on the design of the game. “The devil’s in the details,” or “God lives in the details,” perhaps depending on how much trouble the details are giving you. As designers Ray and Charles Eames once said: “The details are not the details. They make the product.”⁶

对于职位名称中包含“游戏设计师”的人来说，尤其重要的是要记住，事实上，团队中的每个开发人员也都是游戏设计师。团队中的每个人都为游戏设计做出了贡献，最好的游戏设计师意识到了这一点，他们从整个团队收集设计理念，并自己提出创意。游戏设计师的职责是将最好的想法综合成一个连贯的整体。

It’s particularly important for people with “game designer” in their job title to remember that, in fact, every developer on the team is also a game designer. Everyone on the team contributes to the design of the game, and the best game designers realize this, gathering design ideas from all across the team, as well as coming up with ideas themselves. The game designer’s responsibility is to synthesize the best ideas into a coherent whole.

现在我们对游戏原型有了深入的了解，我们将进入下一章，详细讨论构建数字游戏原型的过程。

Now that we have a solid understanding of game prototyping, we’ll move on to the next chapter and a detailed discussion of the process of building a digital game prototype.

2. 1. Tom Wujec，建一座塔，组建一个团队，2010 年，https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= H0_yKBitO8M 。

3. 1.  Tom Wujec, Build a Tower, Build a Team, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0_yKBitO8M.

4. 2. “巴图玩家类型分类法”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types。

5. 2.  “Bartle Taxonomy of Player Types,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types.

6. 3.Chaim Gingold，“灾难性的原型设计及其他故事”，2011年1月20日，http://www.levitylab.com/blog/2011/01/catastrophic-prototyping-and-other-stories/。

7. 3.  Chaim Gingold, “Catastrophic Prototyping and Other Stories,” January 20, 2011, http://www.levitylab.com/blog/2011/01/catastrophic-prototyping-and-other-stories/.

8. 4. “2012 年 IndieCade 上的‘Killer Queen’游戏”，https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=9y3OI3KCdYk 。

9. 4.  “‘Killer Queen’ Game at IndieCade 2012,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y3OI3KCdYk.

10. 5. Liz Ryerson，《Problem Attic》，2013 年，https://lizryerson.itch.io/problem-attic。

11. 5.  Liz Ryerson, Problem Attic, 2013, https://lizryerson.itch.io/problem-attic.

12. 6. Daniel Ostroff，《细节不是细节》，Eames Office，2014 年 9 月 8 日，https://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/the-details-are-not-the-details/。

13. 6.  Daniel Ostroff, “The Details Are Not the Details,” Eames Office, September 8, 2014, https://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/the-details-are-not-the-details/.

选择和使用游戏引擎

Choosing and Using a Game Engine

当我们决定使用哪种游戏引擎来制作游戏原型（并可能在之后进行开发）时，数字原型制作过程就开始了。游戏引擎是用于构建游戏的软件。有些引擎易于使用，有些则较难学习。大多数引擎由公司制作，有些由志愿者开发者团体制作。许多引擎可免费使用，有些则需要付费。

The digital prototyping process starts when we decide what game engine we are going to use to prototype (and maybe later develop) our game. A game engine is a piece of software used to build games. Some are easy to use, and some are more challenging to learn. Most are made by companies, and some by groups of volunteer developers. Many are free to use, and some require payment.

目前，游戏行业和游戏学术界使用最广泛的游戏引擎是 Unity 和 Unreal Engine。两者都有可供下载的免费版本，都附带实用且不断改进的教程，并且都提供大量功能，为您提供巨大的游戏制作潜力。通过互联网上的一些研究，很容易发现其他游戏引擎。维基百科的“游戏引擎列表”文章是一个很好的起点。1^如果您没有做过太多编程，请考虑使用 Twine、Bitsy 或 Emotica。请记住，每个游戏引擎都值得尊重，好的游戏设计总是与创造力和约束有关。过去十年里，我最喜欢的一些游戏都是用易于使用的游戏引擎制作的。

The game engines that are currently the most widely used in both the game industry and game academia are Unity and the Unreal Engine. Both are available as free versions you can download, both come with useful and constantly improving tutorials, and both offer a vast number of features, giving you immense game-making potential. Other game engines are easy to discover with some research on the Internet. Wikipedia’s “List of Game Engines” article is a good place to start.¹ If you haven’t done much programming, consider using Twine, Bitsy, or Emotica. Remember that every game engine is worthy of respect, and good game design is always about creativity and constraints. Some of my favorite games of the last ten years have been made in easy-to-use game engines.

如果您想要使用的游戏引擎尚未可用，只需找到一个您今天可以使用的游戏引擎并立即开始构建。作为游戏设计师，我们应该随时准备好使用手头的任何方法来制作原型。请记住你现在所知道的就足以让你探索和表达你的游戏设计想法。

If the game engine you would like to use is not yet available to you, just find a game engine that you can use today and start building immediately. As game designers, we should always be ready to prototype using whatever means are at hand. Remember that what you know how to do right now is enough to allow you to explore and express your game design ideas.

一旦你选择了引擎，下一步就是学习如何使用它。如果你能通过阅读网页和书籍、观看视频和在论坛上发帖来学习如何使用软件，那么你前进的道路就很清晰了。你所需要做的就是留出时间去学习，你很快就会取得进步。

Once you’ve chosen an engine, your next step is learning how to use it. If you are able to learn how to use software by reading web pages and books, watching videos, and posting on forums, then your path ahead is clear. All you need to do is to set aside the time to learn, and you’ll quickly make progress.

如果你觉得独自学习很困难，你可以去上课或参加研讨会，在你所在地区找一个独立游戏开发者聚会小组，或者找一个愿意教你的朋友。创造一个环境，让你可以定期与比你更有技能、愿意分享或交换专业知识的人见面，你的知识和技能很快就会开始成倍增长。如果你想要更多的帮助和灵感，我推荐安娜·安特罗皮的优秀著作《电子游戏杂志的崛起^》。2

If you find it hard to learn in isolation, you can take a class or go to a workshop, find an indie game developer meet-up group in your area, or find a friend who will teach you. Create an environment where you can regularly meet in person with other people who have more skill than you and are willing to share or trade expertise, and your knowledge and skills will soon start to grow exponentially. If you want more help and inspiration, I recommend Anna Anthropy’s excellent book, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters.²

选择操作系统和硬件平台

Choosing an Operating System and a Hardware Platform

此时，您还有另一个选择：您的原型将在哪种硬件平台和操作系统上运行？您可以选择使用 Windows、macOS 或 Linux 为 PC 或 Mac 制作游戏。您可以使用 Android 或 iOS 为手机或平板电脑制作游戏，也可以为使用专有操作系统的游戏机制作游戏。某些游戏引擎可轻松将您的游戏导出到多个操作系统和硬件平台。

You have another choice to make around this time: what hardware platform and operating system will your prototype run on? You can choose to make games for PC or Mac using Windows, macOS, or Linux. You might make games for a phone or a tablet using Android or iOS or for a game console that uses a proprietary operating system. Some game engines make it easy to export your game to multiple operating systems and hardware platforms.

您可以开发虚拟现实、增强现实或混合现实游戏。您可以制作一款可以在健康追踪器、手表或耳机上玩的游戏。伊恩·博格斯特 (Ian Bogost) 在他的著作《Play Anything》中指出，这个世界充满了游乐场，只要我们能识别它们，我们就可以尽情玩乐。3^我鼓励您将接触到的每个游戏引擎和硬件平台都视为一个游乐场，充满兴趣、情感、挑战和反思的潜力。

You could develop games for virtual reality, augmented reality, or mixed reality. You could make a game to be played on a health tracker or a watch or with some earbuds. In his book Play Anything, Ian Bogost argues that the world is full of playgrounds, ready for us to have fun with if we can recognize them.³ I encourage you to regard every game engine and hardware platform that you approach as a playground, rich with potential for interest, emotion, challenge, and reflection.

根据您的游戏和团队，尽早选择硬件平台可能很重要。正如游戏设计师兼制作人 Alan Dang 向我指出的那样：如果您正在考虑使用一个带来很多限制的平台（例如专门的输入或输出方法），那么您就越需要加快选择速度。

Depending on your game and team, it might be important to choose your hardware platform as early as possible. As game designer and producer Alan Dang pointed out to me: if you’re thinking about using a platform that brings a lot of constraints—such as specialized input or output methods—the greater your need will be to hurry up and choose.

将原型构建为玩具，而不是游戏

Build Your Prototype as a Toy, Not a Game

正如我在上一章中提到的，人们在开始制作原型时有时会犯一个错误：对于他们的第一个数字原型，他们尝试构建一个完整的游戏。他们会创造一个玩家角色和一些敌人。他们会添加一个计分器和一种获得积分的方法。他们会设计一套规则和叙事框架，并设置游戏的开始、中间和结束。

As I mentioned in the previous chapter, people sometimes make a mistake when they start prototyping: for their first digital prototype, they try and build a complete game. They make a player-character and some enemies. They’ll add a score counter and a way to earn points. They’ll devise a set of rules and a narrative frame, and set up a beginning, middle, and end of the game.

我理解这种从一开始就详细规划游戏的冲动。但这样做是本末倒置。从我作为游戏设计师的经验中，我知道正确的道路是一步一步来，对我来说，当我进行数字原型设计时，这通常意味着从制作玩具开始。

I understand this impulse to start to plan a game in detail from the very beginning. But doing so puts the cart before the horse. I know from my experience as a game designer that the correct path is to take one step at a time, and for me, when I’m digital prototyping, that often means starting by building a toy.

玩具是一种能引起玩耍的物品。它可以是商店里买来的玩具，比如洋娃娃或球，也可以是孩子在富有想象力的手中发现的物品，比如水桶或自行车轮胎。对于我们目前的讨论来说，玩具的重要性在于它是一个系统，它要么具有某种机械、互动元素，要么具有某种叙事元素，或者两者兼而有之。

A toy is an object that elicits play. It could be a store-bought toy like a doll or a ball, or it could, in the imaginative hands of a child, be a found object like a bucket or a bicycle tire. The important thing about the toy, for our present discussion, is that it’s a system that either has some mechanical, interactive element, some narrative element, or both.

例如，球被扔到地上会弹起，我们可以试着在弹起后接住它——我们可以很容易地把它想象成一个卡通人物，每次弹起都会说“哎哟”。玩偶可以摆姿势，站立和跌倒，并且具有来自其视觉设计的特定叙事特征：它可能看起来像十九世纪的医生或三十世纪的太空飞行员。水桶可以用作篮子或像头盔一样戴在身上。空自行车轮胎可以从山上滚下来或像飞盘一样扔出去。

For example, a ball will bounce when thrown at the floor, and we can try to catch it after the bounce—we could easily imagine it as a cartoon character that says “ouch” on every bounce. A doll can be posed, will stand and fall, and has a certain narrative character that comes from its visual design: it might look like a nineteenth-century doctor or a thirtieth-century space pilot. A bucket can be used as a basket or worn like a helmet. An empty bicycle tire can be rolled down a hill or thrown like a frisbee.

这些与玩具的互动听起来很像我们在上一章中讨论的玩家活动，不是吗？你可能不习惯将我们玩玩具时所做的事情视为你所玩的数字游戏的基本组成部分，但它们有可能成为游戏玩法的原子动词。摆出玩偶的姿势或扔球在哲学上与我们在商业视频游戏中进行的奔跑、打斗和收集没有什么不同。

These interactions with a toy sound like the player activities we discussed in the last chapter, don’t they? You might not be used to thinking about the things we do when we play with a toy as the fundamental building blocks of the digital games you play, but they have potential as the atomic verbs of gameplay. Posing a doll or throwing a ball is philosophically no different from the running, fighting, and collecting that we do in a commercial videogame.

因此，从构建玩具开始您的数字原型设计吧——小型、简单、好玩的系统。您要寻找的是游戏中使用的最基本的动词和玩家活动。同时，要留意与您心中的叙事想法完美契合的动词和活动。例如，“飞翔”这个动词与飞行员、宇航员和鸟类的故事很相配。

So begin your digital prototyping by building toys—small, simple, playful systems. What you’re looking for are the most fundamental verbs and player activities that you will use in your game. At the same time, be on the lookout for verbs and activities that dovetail nicely with the narrative ideas you have in mind. For example, “to fly” is a verb that goes well with stories about pilots, astronauts, and birds.

也许你会从一些经过实践检验的东西开始，比如一个可以跑和跳的角色，一块可以放置建筑物的带有光标的土地，或者一个网格，网格中有可以滑动的物体，当三个物体排成一行时，它们就会消失。你可以在这些熟悉的玩家活动中添加自己的创意，或者你也可以尝试新的游戏设计方向，制作一种在被弹动时会撒出种子的植物，一个在挥动时会产生肥皂泡的铁环，或者一种在摇晃时会发出奇怪声音的乐器。

Perhaps you’ll start with something tried and true, like a character that can run and jump, a piece of land with a cursor that can place buildings, or a grid with objects that can slide around and that will disappear when three are lined up. You could add your own spin to these familiar player activities, or you might strike out in a new game design direction, making a plant that throws out seeds when it’s flicked, a hoop that makes soap bubbles when it’s waved, or a musical instrument that makes strange sounds when you shake it.

尽量让你的原型专注于探索玩家活动是否 (a) 能够创造一种感觉并看起来很有趣，(b) 是否易于玩家理解和使用，以及 (c) 是否对你想要制作的游戏有用。根据你认为合适的方式调整这些优先级，但始终要清楚你试图通过每个原型弄清楚什么。

Try to keep your prototypes focused on exploring whether the player activities (a) can create a feeling and appear interesting, (b) are easy for players to understand and use, and (c) could be useful in the kind of game you want to make. Adjust these priorities as you see fit, but always stay clear about what you’re trying to figure out with each prototype.

声音对于数字游戏原型的重要性

The Importance of Sound for Digital Game Prototypes

有些人在制作原型时往往会忽略声音设计。这是另一个大错误。作为游戏设计师，我们通常只有三种感官方式与玩家交流：视觉、听觉和触觉。4^虽然不是每个人都能实现振动游戏控制器或移动设备的触摸式“触觉”设计，但我们大多数人都可以在数字原型中实现声音，出于多种原因，我们应该确保这样做。

Some people have a tendency to neglect sound design when they’re prototyping. That’s another big mistake. As game designers, we usually only have three sensory modalities with which to communicate with our players: sight, hearing, and touch.⁴ While not everyone can implement the touch-based “haptic” design of a vibrating game controller or mobile device, most of us can implement sound in our digital prototypes, and we should make sure that we do so, for a number of reasons.

在《游戏感觉：游戏设计师的虚拟感觉指南》中，史蒂夫·斯温克讨论了声音在塑造我们对具有物理属性的虚拟空间的体验方面所起的重要作用。他说，“音效可以完全改变游戏中物体的感知”，并举了两个圆圈相向移动然后相离的动画示例。5^没有任何声音，圆圈看起来就像刚刚擦肩而过。在恰当的时刻加上“boing！”音效，它们突然看起来像橡皮球互相弹跳。

In Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation, Steve Swink discusses the vital role that sound plays in shaping our experience of a virtual space as having physical properties. He says, “A sound effect can completely change the perception of an object in a game,” and gives an example of an animation of two circles moving toward and then away from each other.⁵ Without any sound, the circles look like they just pass each other by. With the addition of a “boing!” sound effect at just the right moment, they suddenly look like rubber balls bouncing off each other.

声音设计可以告诉你角色穿的是运动鞋还是金属靴。它可以告诉你箭是从石头还是冰上弹起的，它肯定会让你的界面选择感到满意或恼人。史蒂夫·斯温克继续描述了声音设计的细微差别如何传达信息，不仅仅是关于物体或事件，还包括事件发生的空间：“如果那把巨大的锤子击中地面，声音回荡，传达给玩家的感觉是，这种撞击发生在一个巨大的仓库或其他巨大的空旷的室内空间内。如果撞击被消音，听起来更像是撞击外面的地面。” ⁶

Sound design can tell you whether a character is wearing sneakers or metal boots. It can tell you whether your arrow bounced off stone or ice, and it will certainly make your interface selections feel satisfying or annoying. Steve Swink goes on to describe the way that nuances of sound design can convey information not just about objects or an event but about the space that the event takes place in: “If that massive hammer hits the ground and the sound echoes and reverberates, the sense conveyed to the player is that this impact happened inside a giant warehouse or other massive, empty, interior space. If the impact is muffled, it will sound more like striking the ground outside.”⁶

声音的作用远不止这些。奥斯卡获奖声音设计师 Randy Thom 在其精彩文章《为声音设计电影》中列出了声音为电影以及游戏及其数字原型带来的十三种不同的“天赋”：

That’s not all that sound can do. In his excellent article “Designing a Movie for Sound,” Academy Award–winning sound designer Randy Thom lists thirteen different “talents” that sound contributes to film and, by extension, to games and their digital prototypes:

音乐、对话和音效都可以完成以下任何一项工作，甚至更多：

Music, dialogue, and sound effects can each do any of the following jobs, and many more:

• 暗示一种情绪，唤起一种感觉
• suggest a mood, evoke a feeling
• 设定步调
• set a pace
• 表示地理位置
• indicate a geographical locale
• 表示某个历史时期
• indicate a historical period
• 阐明情节
• clarify the plot
• 定义一个字符
• define a character
• 将原本不相关的想法、人物、地点、图像或时刻联系起来
• connect otherwise unconnected ideas, characters, places, images, or moments
• 增强或减弱现实感
• heighten realism or diminish it
• 增加或减少歧义
• heighten ambiguity or diminish it
• 引起对细节的注意，或远离它
• draw attention to a detail, or away from it
• 表示时间的变化
• indicate changes in time
• 平滑镜头或场景之间的突然变化
• smooth otherwise abrupt changes between shots or scenes
• 强调过渡以达到戏剧效果
• emphasize a transition for dramatic effect
• 描述声学空间
• describe an acoustic space
• 惊吓或抚慰
• startle or soothe
• 夸大行动或调解行动⁷
• exaggerate action or mediate it⁷

Steve Swink 还在《Game Feel》中指出，有趣的是，声音并不像图像那样受现实主义的约束。电影声音设计的学生很早就知道，我们所知道的许多标志性音效并不与现实紧密相关，而是通过诗意的共鸣和惯例而采用的。当你想到电影中有人在雪地上行走时听到的清脆的“嘎吱”声时，你实际上是在想有人碾碎一个皮袋玉米淀粉的声音，这是很久以前由一位富有创新精神的、不知名的电影拟音设计师建立的惯例。正如 Steve Swink 所说：

Steve Swink also points out in Game Feel that, interestingly, sound isn’t bound by realism in the way that images usually are. Students of filmic sound design learn early on that many of the iconic sound effects that we know aren’t tightly tied to reality but are adopted by poetic resonance and by convention. When you think of the crisp “crump” sound that you’ve heard whenever someone walks on snow in a movie, you’re actually thinking of the sound of someone crushing a leather pouch of cornstarch, a convention established long ago by an innovative and unknown movie Foley sound designer. As Steve Swink says:

《块魂》中宇宙之王的录音，以及《托尼霍克 3》中特殊动作完成后的管弦乐，都证明了将意想不到的音效映射到特定事件上可以产生令人愉悦的效果。这些与它们试图描绘的事物的现实无关，但它们让人感到满意。就像在动画片中一样，没有必要将你对如何应用音效的思考限制在对现实的模拟上。你可以用与物体表面现实截然不同的噪音来传达一种物理性的印象^。8

The record scratch for the King of All Cosmos speaks in Katamari Damacy or the orchestral hit when a special move is completed in Tony Hawk 3 prove that mapping an unexpected sound effect to a particular event can have delightful results. These have nothing to do with the reality of the things they are attempting to portray, but they feel satisfying. As in a cartoon, it’s not necessary to limit your thinking about how to apply a sound effect to the emulation of reality. You can convey an impression of physicality with a noise much different from the apparent reality of the object.⁸

所以，这就是我们应该将声音设计作为​​数字原型制作过程的一部分的原因之一：它为我们的游戏开辟了广阔的可能体验，超越了听觉，延伸到我们对空间、质量、摩擦、动量和其他物理特性的感知。

So, this is one reason why we should make sound design a part of our digital prototyping process: it opens up a huge vista of possible experience for our game that reaches beyond the auditory and into our perception of space, mass, friction, momentum, and other physical properties.

在数字原型中加入声音的另一个重要原因与情感有关。我刚加入 Crystal Dynamics 时，曾听人说过“眼睛与大脑相连，而耳朵与心灵相连”。我忘了是谁说的，但我从未忘记他们的话。他们的观点是，在电影和游戏中，虽然画面和声音都传达了逻辑和情感信息，但画面本身往往不太具有情感色彩，而声音设计在塑造情感体验方面发挥着巨大作用。举个例子，请看克里斯托弗·鲁尔 (Christopher Rule) 的 1 分钟长电影《惊声尖叫玛丽》 ，这是迪士尼 1964 年电影《欢乐满人间》的重新剪辑版预告片 采用新的声音设计，将儿童故事重塑为一部恐怖惊悚片。9^在《可怕的玛丽》中，你会听到声音设计和音乐在传达信息和创造情感方面所发挥的重要作用。

Another important reason to include sound in a digital prototype relates to emotion. Once, early in my time at Crystal Dynamics, I heard someone say that “the eye is connected to the brain, but the ear is connected to the heart.” I forget who said it, but I have never forgotten their words. They were making the point that in films and games, while picture and sound both convey logical and emotional information, the picture tends to be less emotionally charged on its own, while sound design plays a huge role in shaping emotional experience. For an example of this, take a look at Christopher Rule’s minute-long film, Scary Mary, a recut trailer for Disney’s 1964 film Mary Poppins with new sound design that recasts the children’s story as a terrifying thriller.⁹ In Scary Mary you’ll hear the important role that both sound design and music can play in conveying information and creating emotion.

Mark Cerny 最近告诉我，他非常重视 3D 音频技术在游戏中的重要性，以及它所带来的增强的局部性和临场感。3D 音频技术模仿声波与环境相互作用的方式；局部性与感知空间中发出噪音的物体的位置有关，而临场感则是真正处于特定环境中的心理印象。正如 Mark 所说，“局部性实际上会影响设计（你确切地知道你看不到的敌人在哪里），而临场感与你与游戏的情感关系有关。”

Mark Cerny recently told me that he has a strong focus on the importance of 3D audio technology in games, and the enhanced locality and presence it brings. 3D audio technologies mimic the way that sound waves interact with an environment; locality relates to being able to perceive the positions of noise-making objects in space, while presence is the psychological impression of actually being in a certain environment. As Mark says, the “locality actually affects the design (you know exactly where the enemy you can’t see is) and the presence is connected to your emotional relationship with the game.”

在 2014 年的 GDC Microtalk 上，作曲家 Austin Wintory 建议，与其像许多游戏开发商那样在项目后期才引入作曲家，不如在创作过程的一开始就引入他们，这样会更好。10^当我们在游戏项目的生命周期早期就将作曲家引入游戏项目时，新的创作机会就会出现，因为作曲家的专业知识可以与游戏设计师的专业知识交织在一起。将音乐和声音放入大多数数字原型中非常容易，通过这样做，您将学到很多东西。

In his 2014 GDC Microtalk, composer Austin Wintory suggested that instead of bringing in a composer late in a project, as many game developers regrettably do, it would be excellent to bring them in at the very beginning of the creative process.¹⁰ New creative opportunities open up when we bring a composer into a game project early in its life cycle, as the composer’s expertise can intertwine with that of the game designer. It’s very easy to drop music and sound into most digital prototypes, and you’ll learn an enormous amount by doing so.

在数字原型上进行游戏测试和迭代

Playtesting and Iterating on a Digital Prototype

一旦你有了可以让玩家做某事的原型，你就必须对其进行游戏测试。我尽量不花超过一个小时的时间来构建游戏玩法，然后运行游戏，找一个路人，让他们玩几分钟。游戏设计师非常善于评估游戏中哪些部分是可行的。我们想到一些看起来可能很有趣或有趣的东西，我们在游戏引擎中构建它，然后尝试它。也许它很好，我们喜欢它。也许我们认为它很无聊和愚蠢，或者根本行不通。在这两种情况下，我们都应该对我们构建的东西进行游戏测试。

As soon as you have a prototype in which a player can do something, you must playtest it. I try not to spend more than a single hour building gameplay before I run the game, grab a passerby, and ask them to play for a few minutes. Game designers are pretty good at evaluating what’s working in their games. We think of something that seems like it might be fun or interesting, we build it in our game engine, and we try it out. Maybe it’s good, and we like it. Maybe we think it’s boring and stupid, or otherwise doesn’t work. In both cases, we should playtest what we built.

我们理解自己所构建的东西的优缺点的能力，在很大程度上受到我们构建它这一事实的限制。我们思考了很长时间，并且了解它的工作原理。也许我们的原型对我们来说很有趣，因为我们对它非常了解。其他人可能会立刻感到无聊或卡住。另一方面，也许我们认为我们的原型很无聊，因为我们对它非常了解。如果我们把它交给一个完全不了解它的人，我们可能会发现他们觉得它很有趣、令人愉快和好玩。

Our own ability to understand what’s good and bad about something we’ve built is radically limited by the fact that we built it. We’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and we understand how it works in intimate detail. Maybe our prototype is only fun to us because we understand it so well. Someone else might get bored or stuck straightaway. On the other hand, maybe we think our prototype is boring because we understand it so well. If we give it to someone who doesn’t know it at all, we might discover that they find it interesting, pleasurable, and fun.

我们将在第 12 章中深入探讨如何充分利用游戏测试，但现在，当您进行游戏测试时：

We’ll take an in-depth look at getting the most out of playtests in chapter 12, but for now, when you’re playtesting:

• 不要解释太多。如果可以的话就不要解释任何事情。
• Don’t explain too much. Don’t explain anything if you can get away with it.
• 不要帮助你的游戏测试员任何事或者以其他方式干扰他们的工作。
• Don’t help your playtester at all or otherwise interfere with what they do.
• 观察游戏测试员的游戏。注意他们做什么，听他们说什么。
• Watch your playtesters play. Notice what they do and listen to what they say.
• 记录下他们在演奏时你所看到和听到的内容。
• Take lots of notes about what you see and hear while they’re playing.
• 当你在游戏测试员玩完游戏后与他们交谈时，不要急于解释任何事情。相反，要问一些问题，让他们了解他们刚刚经历的事情。
• When you’re talking to your playtester after they’ve played, resist the urge to explain anything. Instead, ask questions that draw them out about the experience they’ve just had.

每次游戏测试之后，包括您在构建原型时进行的非常简短的游戏测试，都需要评估测试结果并迭代您的设计。

After every playtest, including the very short playtests that you do when you’re building a prototype, it’s time to evaluate the results of the test and then iterate on your design.

• 由于成功了，应该强调什么？
• What should be amplified because it was successful?
• 什么需要修复才能最终发挥作用？
• What needs fixing because it might eventually work?
• 什么应该被删除，因为它不起作用并且可能永远不会起作用？
• What should be removed because it isn’t working and probably won’t ever work?

这里可能会有一些艰难的决定。作为一名游戏设计师，你成长得越快，你对原型潜力的判断就会越好。一旦你决定了要保留、更改和放弃什么，就对原型进行另一轮工作，然后再次测试。这个计划-制作-游戏测试-评估-重复的迭代周期将贯穿你的游戏开发的大部分过程。

There can be some tough calls to make here. The more you grow as a game designer, the better your judgment will become about the potential of your prototypes. Once you’ve decided what to keep, change, and chuck, do another round of work on your prototype, and then test it again. This iterative cycle of plan-make-playtest-evaluate-repeat is one that will remain with you throughout most of your game’s development.

在专业环境中，最好每周或尽可能频繁地进行“朋友和家人”游戏测试。在课堂环境中，每周进行一次“抢椅子”游戏测试，每轮时间都很短，以便尽可能多地收集有关每个游戏或原型的反馈。

In a professional environment, it’s good to run “friends and family” playtests every week or as often as you can manage. In a classroom setting, run weekly “musical chairs” playtest sessions with very short rounds, to get as much feedback as possible about every game or prototype.

我们应该制作多少个数字原型？

How Many Digital Prototypes Should We Make?

答案很简单：你应该在分配给创意的时间里制作尽可能多的不同数字原型。对于想要创新和发现新游戏类型和新游戏风格的设计师来说尤其如此。对于有数字游戏制作经验的人来说，创建一个强大的玩家活动原型可能只需要几个小时——甚至可能只需要二十分钟。如果你专注于非常简单的原型，你可能一天就能制作出大量的原型。

The answer to this is simple: you should make as many different digital prototypes as you can in the time that you have allocated for ideation. This is especially true for designers who want to innovate and discover new types of games and new styles of play. For someone with digital game-making experience, it might only take a few hours to create a strong player activity prototype—and maybe as little as twenty minutes. If you stay focused on very simple prototypes, you might be able to make a huge number of them in a single day.

有时，你会立即发现第一个数字原型带来的金矿。你会发现一个玩家活动效果非常好，你只想追随它的脚步。有时，制作一个你和你的游戏测试员都喜欢的原型需要一段时间，这没关系。重要的是不要气馁，继续创造新的东西。你寻找的金矿最终会出现，要么是晴天霹雳，要么只是因为你和你的游戏测试员更喜欢你的一个原型。

Sometimes you’ll strike gold straightaway, with your very first digital prototype. You’ll find a player activity that works so well that you just know you want to follow where it leads. Sometimes it will take a while to make a prototype that you and your playtesters like, and that’s okay. It’s important not to get discouraged and to keep making new things. The seam of gold that you’re looking for will eventually appear, either with a bolt from the blue or just because you and your playtesters like one of your prototypes better than the others.

何时遵循原型引导

When to Follow Where a Prototype Leads

无论何时，当你制作出你喜欢的数字原型时，你都会有一个选择。你是否应该利用剩余的构思时间继续迭代成功的原型？还是应该探索一些截然不同的方向？在成功的原型上进行迭代可能更安全，但我宁愿多探索，尤其是在构思阶段的早期。这种决策的不确定性是创造力既可怕又令人兴奋的部分原因。找到适合你的工作风格的平衡点取决于你。

Whenever you’ve made a digital prototype you like, you’ll have a choice to make. Should you use your remaining ideation time to continue to iterate on the successful prototype? Or should you explore some wildly different directions? It might be safer to iterate on a successful prototype, but I like to err on the side of more exploration, especially early in the ideation phase. The uncertainty around this kind of decision is part of what makes creativity both scary and exciting. It’s up to you to find the right balance for your working style.

我经常看到人们丢弃运行良好的原型，他们通常是出于自负。他们不喜欢自己制作的游戏，因为它不符合他们对游戏的期望。也许他们认为它不够酷或不够创新，尽管如果再多做一点工作，它有可能兼具这两种功能。即使他们的游戏测试者玩得很开心、想玩更多，或者被他们玩过的游戏感动，他们还是会把它扔掉。

I’ve often seen people discard prototypes that are working very well, and they usually do it out of ego. They don’t like what they made because it doesn’t match their expectation of what they thought their game would be like. Maybe they judge it as not cool or innovative enough, even though it has the potential to be both with a little more work. They junk it even though their playtesters were having a wonderful time, wanted to play more, or were moved by what they played.

防范这种情况。是的，自我意识对于有创造力的人来说是必不可少的：它是创造性愿景的源泉。但如果动机不明智，它很容易破坏或阻碍我们的进程。在构思过程中，我们必须将愿景与对新想法的开放态度相协调。这需要努力，但发展这种必不可少的创造力的唯一方法就是锻炼它。

Guard against this. Yes, ego is essential for creative people: it’s a source of creative vision. But it can easily derail or block our process, if it’s unwisely motivated. During ideation we have to reconcile our vision with our openness to new ideas. This takes effort, but the only way to develop this essential creative muscle is to work it.

构思交付成果：原型构建

Ideation Deliverable: Prototype Builds

可交付成果是项目开发人员在开发过程中向其利益相关者（负责运营和/或为项目提供资金的人员）提供的东西。我们的原型是我们将在整个有趣的生产过程中制作的几个可交付成果中的第一个。

A deliverable is a thing provided by a project’s developers to its stakeholders (the people running and/or financing the project) as part of a development process. Our prototypes are the first of several deliverables that we’ll make throughout our playful production process.

将原型作为可交付成果交付的最佳方式是创建可执行文件。此可执行文件允许我们在运行文件时播放原型，而制作可执行文件在软件开发人员中被称为制作“构建”。制作构建是整个开发过程的重要组成部分。细节因引擎而异，您正在使用的游戏引擎将提供有关制作构建的文档（尽管并非每个引擎都可以或需要制作构建）。

The best way to deliver a prototype as a deliverable is by creating an executable file. This executable allows us to play the prototype when the file is run, and making the executable is known among software developers as making a “build.” Making a build is an important part of the overall development process. The details vary from engine to engine, and the game engine that you’re working in will offer documentation about making one (though not every engine can or needs to make builds).

出于多种原因，无论您是将作品发送给游戏发行商、项目经理、专业同行还是教授，交付构建版本都比交付项目文件夹更好。构建版本更简单、更方便处理 - 只需单击几下，您就可以玩游戏。构建版本的文件大小通常也比项目文件夹小得多。

It’s better to deliver builds instead of project folders for a number of reasons, whether you’re sending your work to a game publisher, project manager, professional peer, or professor. A build is easier and more convenient to deal with—in a couple of clicks, you can be playing the game. A build is also usually much smaller than a project folder in terms of file size.

虽然我从不丢弃旧原型的项目文件夹，但我会保留原型构建的存档。当我以后想查看旧原型以获得灵感或研究时，找到并运行构建比加载项目文件更容易（只要旧构建仍可运行）。

While I never throw away the project folders for my old prototypes, I keep an archive of prototype builds alongside them. When I want to look at an old prototype later for inspiration or research, it’s easier to find and run a build than to load up a project file (as long as the old build still runs).

杰作综合症

Masterpiece Syndrome

你可能听说过杰作综合症，即富有创造力的人对下一个项目兴奋不已，以至于不堪重负。当一个项目比你之前做过的任何项目都大且可能更好时，杰作综合症就会出现，无论是你制作的第一款专业游戏还是大学论文项目。

You might have heard of masterpiece syndrome, where creative people get so excited about their next project that they become overwhelmed by the responsibility. Masterpiece syndrome often kicks in when a project is bigger and potentially better than any you’ve worked on before, whether it’s your first professionally made game or a university thesis project.

杰作综合症类似于我们在第 1 章中讨论的白纸问题。人们被制作什么和如何制作的看似无限的选择所困扰。你希望这个游戏成为你做过的最好的游戏，成为经典，成为现代杰作（至少对你来说）。但压力如此之大，以至于会让你无能为力，尤其是当你开始将你正在制作的东西与你喜欢的游戏设计师制作的所有杰作进行比较时。

Masterpiece syndrome is similar to the blank-sheet-of-paper problem we discussed in chapter 1. People become paralyzed by the seemingly infinite options for what to make and how to make it. You want this game to be the best thing you’ve ever made, an instant classic, a modern masterpiece (for you, at least). But the pressure is so intense that it can be incapacitating, especially if you start to compare the things you’re making to all of the masterpieces made by the game designers you love.

为了让大家预防杰作综合症，我引用了《美国生活》中伊拉·格拉斯关于“差距”的这句名言：

In an attempt to inoculate people against masterpiece syndrome, I give them this quote about “the gap,” from Ira Glass of This American Life fame:

没人会告诉初学者这一点；我希望有人能告诉我。我们所有从事创意工作的人，都是因为我们有良好的品味。但存在差距。在最初几年里，你做的东西并不是那么好。它试图变得更好，它有潜力，但事实并非如此。但你的品味，让你进入这个行业的东西，仍然是杀手级的。而你的品味就是你的作品让你失望的原因。

很多人永远无法度过这个阶段，他们放弃了。我认识的大多数从事有趣、创造性工作的人都经历了多年的这种状态。我们知道我们的工作没有我们想要的那种特别的东西。我们都经历过这种情况。如果你刚刚起步或者你还处于这个阶段，你必须知道这是正常的，你能做的最重要的事情就是多做工作。

给自己设定一个截止日期，这样你每周就能完成一个故事。只有完成大量的工作，你才能缩小差距，你的工作才会和你的抱负一样好。我花了比我见过的任何人都更长的时间来弄清楚如何做到这一点。这需要一段时间。花点时间很正常。你只需要努力奋斗^。12

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners; I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.

Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.¹²

应对杰作综合症的正确方法是少想、多做、接受失败。无畏失败是我游戏设计理念的核心部分。如果你的一个原型不起作用——没关系。继续构建下一个。如果你制作了很多原型，那么在你构思阶段时间用完的那一天，其中一个会脱颖而出成为最好的，你可以在下一个项目阶段继续研究它——或者它的变体。

The right way to deal with masterpiece syndrome is to think less, act more, and embrace failure. Being fearless about failing is a central part of my game design philosophy. If one of your prototypes doesn’t work—that’s fine. Just move on to building the next thing. If you make a lot of prototypes, then on the day that you run out of ideation phase time, one of them will stand out as the best, and you can keep working on it—or a variation of it—in the next project phase.

原型游戏测试的情感层面

The Emotional Side of Prototype Playtests

原型游戏测试通常具有美妙的节日氛围，在我的课堂上，很高兴看到许多有趣、实验性、创新的软件出现。然而，原型游戏测试也会带来一些焦虑。人们在时间压力下完成工作，可能正处于某种杰作综合症中。如果你做得对，游戏测试可能会非常痛苦。当游戏测试员陷入困境而你无法帮助他们时，你会感到痛苦，当有人不喜欢你的游戏时，你的感受可能很难处理。

Prototype playtests usually have a wonderful, festival atmosphere, and in my classes it’s great to see lots of playful, experimental, innovative software showing up. However, prototype playtests can also have some anxiety attached to them. People are bringing in work that they’ve made under time pressure, and might be sitting on some masterpiece syndrome. If you’re doing it right, playtesting can be pretty painful. It’s agonizing when a playtester gets stuck and you can’t help them, and the feelings that you have when someone doesn’t like your game can be difficult to deal with.

我会留意那些对原型游戏测试过程（或整个原型制作过程）感到不满的人，并为他们提供支持。我会指出我喜欢他们作品的地方，并提供一些建设性的批评意见，这样他们就会开始放松下来，看到自己作品的价值。

I try to look out for anyone who isn’t feeling good about the prototype playtesting process (or the prototyping process overall) and offer them some support. I point out the things that I like about their work, as well as offering some constructive critique, and they will often start to relax and see the value in what they’ve made.

我总是鼓励设计师在需要的时候寻求这种支持。如果设计就像 Tom Wujec 所说的那样是一种接触性运动，那么它就相当混乱，在经历复杂、充满情感的游戏过程中，我们有责任对自己和彼此保持友善、富有同情心、支持和尊重设计和开发。寻求帮助可能很难，但忍受这样做带来的不适是合作者和领导者的一项基本技能。

I always encourage designers to seek out this kind of support whenever they need it. If design is a contact sport as Tom Wujec says, then it’s rather rough-and-tumble, and we owe it to ourselves and each other to be kind, compassionate, supportive, and respectful as we go through the complex, emotionally charged process that is game design and development. It can be hard to ask for help, but tolerating the discomfort that comes with doing so is an essential skill for collaborators and leaders alike.

关于原型设计，我能给你的最好的一般建议就是全身心投入其中，充满紧迫感和快乐。不要想太多——只是做，做，做！享受你所做的一切，不要为你的产出质量而感到压力。不要害怕放弃启发原型的想法，让原型引领你走向新的方向。注意世界上出现在你面前的东西并追求它。就像从雾中出现的山脉一样，原型链将帮助你更好地看到你的创意愿景。

The best general advice that I can give you about prototyping is just to throw yourself into it with urgent, joyful abandon. Don’t think too hard—just make, make, make! Enjoy everything you do, and don’t get stressed out about the quality of your output. Don’t be afraid to abandon the idea that inspired a prototype and let the prototype lead you in a new direction. Notice what is appearing in front of you in the world and pursue it. Like a mountain range emerging from the mist, the chain of your prototypes will help your creative vision come into better view.

正如马克·塞尼最近告诉我的那样：“对于《战神》来说，关键是要让每个瞬间都史诗般精彩。对于《控制》来说，关键是叙事、环境和游戏机制的官僚超现实主义。” ¹³原型设计将帮助你确定你的创作方向，这将体现在我所认为的构思阶段最重要的可交付成果中：我们游戏的项目目标。

As Mark Cerny recently told me: “For God of War, it’s about making each moment epic. For Control, it’s about the bureaucratic surreality of narrative, environment and game mechanics.”¹³ Prototyping will help you define your creative direction, which will find expression in what I see as the most important deliverable outcome of the ideation phase: our game’s project goals.

2. 1. “游戏引擎列表”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines。

3. 1.  “List of Game Engines,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_game_engines.

4. 2. Anthropy，电子游戏杂志爱好者的崛起。

5. 2.  Anthropy, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters.

6. 3 . Bogost，玩任何东西。

7. 3.  Bogost, Play Anything.

8. 4.从事线下娱乐的游戏设计师也可以使用嗅觉设计来增强玩家的体验。但除了视觉、听觉、味觉、嗅觉和触觉这五种感觉之外，还有更多的感觉模式。本体感觉，即我们对身体相对于自身位置的感觉，是虚拟现实设计师的一个重要考虑因素，人类还有大约二十种其他感觉，游戏设计师可能会在设计中使用它们。我们将在第 7 章中回顾这些感觉。有关更多信息，请参阅维基百科“Sense”，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense。

9. 4.  Game designers working in location-based entertainment can also use olfactory (smell) design to enhance their players’ experiences. But there are many more sensory modalities than the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Proprioception, our sense of where our body is in relationship to itself, is an important consideration for virtual reality designers, and humans have around twenty other senses that game designers might use in their designs. We’ll come back to the senses in chapter 7. For further information, refer to “Sense,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense.

10. 5.Swink，《游戏感觉》，159。

11. 5.  Swink, Game Feel, 159.

12. 6 . Swink，游戏感觉，160。

13. 6.  Swink, Game Feel, 160.

14. 7. Randy Thom，《为声音设计电影》，FilmSound.org，1999 年，http://filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm。

15. 7.  Randy Thom, “Designing a Movie for Sound,” FilmSound.org, 1999, http://filmsound.org/articles/designing_for_sound.htm.

16. 8.Swink，《游戏感觉》，161页。

17. 8.  Swink, Game Feel, 161.

18. 9.克里斯托弗·鲁尔 (Christopher Rule)，《《欢乐满人间》原版恐怖预告片重录》，2006 年，https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=2T5_0AGdFic 。

19. 9.  Christopher Rule, “THE ORIGINAL Scary ‘Mary Poppins’ Recut Trailer,” 2006, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic.

20. 10. Austin Wintory，GDC Microtalks 2014：一小时，十位演讲者，全套游戏思维！，https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020391/GDC-Microtalks-2014-One-Hour，31 :45。

21. 10.  Austin Wintory, GDC Microtalks 2014: One Hour, Ten Speakers, a Panoply of Game Thinking!, https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020391/GDC-Microtalks-2014-One-Hour, 31:45.

22. 11. IGDA 信用标准委员会，“信用标准指南 Ver 9.2 [EN/JP] [2014]”，IGDA.org，2014 年 8 月 15 日，https: //igda.org/resources-archive/crediting-standards-guide-ver-9-2-en-jp-2014/ 。

23. 11.  IGDA Credit Standards Committee, “Crediting Standards Guide Ver 9.2 [EN/JP] [2014],” IGDA.org, August 15, 2014, https://igda.org/resources-archive/crediting-standards-guide-ver-9-2-en-jp-2014/.

24. 12.伊拉·格拉斯和丹尼尔·萨克斯，《伊拉·格拉斯的差距》，2014 年，https://vimeo.com/85040589。

25. 12.  Ira Glass and Daniel Sacks, THE GAP by Ira Glass, 2014, https://vimeo.com/85040589.

26. 13.私人通信，2020年5月31日。

27. 13.  Private communication, May 31, 2020.

沟通、协作、领导力和冲突

Communication, Collaboration, Leadership, and Conflict

与大多数游戏开发者一样，我非常重视沟通、协作、领导力和冲突，这是游戏开发的核心方面。这些“软技能”与团队成员之间的合作方式有关，与强大的游戏设计、巧妙的编程或精美的艺术和音频一样，都是创造优秀视频游戏的一部分。

Like most game developers, I place a strong focus on communication, collaboration, leadership, and conflict as core aspects of game development. These “soft skills,” relating to the way that team members work with one another, are as much a part of the creation of an excellent videogame as strong game design, ingenious programming, or beautiful art and audio.

沟通这一点很重要，因为制作游戏需要大量讨论与游戏设计相关的抽象概念以及与游戏实施相关的具体事实。不幸的是，我们大多数人的沟通能力远不如自己所愿。最简单的沟通——关于街道方向或家庭作业——也可能令人困惑和沮丧。我见过这种沮丧感被放大了一万倍，因为有人徒劳地试图向队友描述一个复杂的游戏设计理念，每个人都用自己的先入之见和偏见混淆了谈话。

Communication is important because making a game involves much discussion of abstract concepts related to our game’s design and of concrete facts related to its implementation. Unfortunately, most of us aren’t nearly as good at communicating as we’d like to be. The simplest of communications—about street directions or a homework assignment—can be confusing and frustrating. I’ve seen that frustration amplified ten thousand–fold as someone tries in vain to describe a complicated game design idea to a teammate, each person muddying the conversation with their own preconceptions and biases.

事情变得更加复杂，交流就像我们所有的认知一样，深受情绪的影响。情绪影响我们说话和倾听的能力。你是否曾因为察觉到对方心情不好而推迟告诉对方一些难以启齿的事情？或者你是否曾因为对方说了某些话而感到难以启齿？幸运的是，我们可以通过学习我将在本章后面介绍的实用技能来提高我们的交流能力。

To make things even more complicated, communication, like all of our cognition, is profoundly affected by emotion. Emotion affects our ability to say things and to hear them. Have you ever put off telling somebody something difficult because you could tell that they weren’t in the right mood to hear it? Or have you found a conversation becoming difficult because you got defensive about something that was said? Happily, we can improve our ability to communicate, by learning practical skills like the ones I’ll introduce you to later in this chapter.

合作对于大多数游戏开发者来说，这一点很重要，因为我们中很少有人完全独立开发游戏。我们大多数人都是团队合作，从 3A 级开发者到独立开发者和学生。即使是那些我们认为是游戏制作作者的人，他们独立工作以实现他们独特的愿景，也会与其他人合作：那些制作软件工具并编写我们都使用的共享代码库的人，以及那些提供设计反馈和建议的人。

Collaboration is important for most game developers, because few of us make games entirely on our own. Most of us work in teams, from triple-A developers to indies and students. Even the people we think of as game-making auteurs, working in isolation to bring their unique vision into being, collaborate with other people: those who make the software tools and write the shared code libraries that we all use, and those who give design feedback and advice.

与他人合作可以充满乐趣、丰富多彩、启发人心和振奋人心。我们可以共同完成我们独自无法完成的事情。它也可能很困难、令人沮丧、痛苦甚至令人恐惧。幸运的是，良好合作的能力也是可以学习的。

Working with others can be fun, enriching, illuminating, and energizing. We can accomplish things working together that we couldn’t possibly achieve on our own. It can also be difficult, frustrating, agonizing, and even scary. Fortunately, the ability to collaborate well is also something that can be learned.

合作是 USC Games 项目的核心，也是游戏制作中非常重要的一个方面。电影剪辑师、导演兼音效设计师 Walter Murch（南加州大学电影艺术学院校友）曾强调过合作的重要性，他说：“工作的一半在于完成工作，另一半在于找到与人相处的方法，并让自己适应微妙的情况。” ¹

Collaboration is built into the heart of the USC Games program as a very important aspect of game-making. Film editor, director, and sound designer Walter Murch—a USC School of Cinematic Arts alumnus—famously emphasized the importance of collaboration when he said, “Half the job is doing the job, and the other half is finding ways to get along with people and tuning yourself in to the delicacy of the situation.”¹

我对默奇的“微妙处境”有两种解读。我认为他指的是一起完成工作的个人之间关系的微妙之处，他也在谈论他们所创作作品中复杂的元素平衡。总而言之，这就是“处境”：合作创作作品的人群和作品本身。这两件事紧密相连。如果队友相处不融洽——如果他们总是沟通不畅或互相争斗——那么他们创作的作品可能就不会达到预期效果。

I have two interpretations of Murch’s “delicacy of the situation.” I think that he is referring to subtleties in the relationships between the individuals doing a job together, and he’s also talking about the complex balance of elements in the creative work they’re making. Taken together, this is “the situation”: the community of people collaborating to make a creative work and the work itself. The two things are deeply interconnected. If teammates don’t get along—if they’re always miscommunicating or fighting against each other—then the creative work they’re making probably won’t hit the right notes.

不过，良好的合作不仅仅是轻松相处。根据我的经验，最好的合作方式是人们愿意互相尊重地挑战对方，以确保我们能够做出最好的设计决策。但建设性的分歧和破坏性的争论是有区别的，我们必须学会区分它们。

Good collaboration isn’t just about getting along easily, though. In my experience, it’s best when people are willing to challenge each other respectfully, to make sure that we’re reaching the best design decisions possible. But there’s a difference between productive disagreement and destructive argument, and we must learn to tell them apart.

领导是游戏开发的关键技能，无论我们是负责整个项目设计和开发的游戏总监，还是团队中最年轻的成员。领导力不仅仅是领导，而是与领导者合作。团队中的每个人，直到游戏总监，都必须能够识别何时领导，何时跟随。这对于团队中的学科负责人（首席艺术家、首席程序员等）尤其重要，他们必须弄清楚何时自己做决定，何时与游戏总监汇报。

Leadership is a key game development skill, whether we’re a game director in charge of the design and development of an entire project or the most junior person on a team. Leadership isn’t just about leading; it’s about working with leaders. Everyone on the team, right up to the game director, must be able to recognize when to lead and when to follow. This is particularly important for the discipline leads on a team (the lead artist, lead programmer, and so on), who must figure out when to make a decision on their own and when to check in with the game director.

优秀的游戏开发领导力在于知道什么时候需要在某件事上做更多的工作，什么时候该转向其他事情。它在于及时做出决定，以便其他人可以继续他们的工作。有时，它在于拒绝做出决定，因为我们仍在研究设计，然后与其他人合作，以便他们仍能继续前进。游戏团队领导力在于认识到开发团队的情绪状态，无论是个人还是团体，都要积极向上、保持平衡。这也包括帮助团队成员化解分歧。

Good game development leadership is about knowing when more work needs to be done on something and when it’s time to move on to something else. It’s about making timely decisions so that other people can move ahead with their work. It’s sometimes about refusing to make a decision yet, because we’re still figuring out the design, and then working with others so that they can still move forward. Game team leadership is about recognizing the emotional state of a development team, as individuals and in groups, and bringing positivity and balance where it’s needed. It’s also about helping team members who have come into conflict resolve their differences.

培养真正的领导能力可能需要很长时间，但你会发现领导能力与良好的沟通、协作和冲突管理技能密切相关。

It can take a long time to develop genuine leadership ability, but you’ll find that the ability to lead is closely connected to good communication, collaboration, and conflict management skill.

为了解游戏总监的广泛技能，我推荐 Brian Allgeier 的优秀著作《指导视频游戏：创意领导者的 101 条建议》 。Clinton Keith 和 Grant Shonkwiler 合著的《创意敏捷工具：100 多种创意创新和团队合作工具》中的“组织改进”和“团队文化”部分为那些希望提高游戏开发领导技能的人提供了大量智慧。Ed Catmull 和 Amy Wallace 合著的《创意公司：克服阻碍真正灵感的无形力量》提供了有关创意领导力的宝贵建议，同时还提供了实际案例和对创意团队如何运作的真正理解。

To get a sense of the wide-ranging skills of a game director, I recommend Brian Allgeier’s excellent Directing Video Games: 101 Tips for Creative Leaders. The “Organizational Improvements” and “Team Culture” sections of Clinton Keith and Grant Shonkwiler’s Creative Agility Tools: 100+ Tools for Creative Innovation and Teamwork contain a lot of wisdom for people seeking to improve their game development leadership skills. Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace, offers great advice about creative leadership, alongside practical examples and a real understanding of how creative teams work.

冲突游戏开发团队成员之间的冲突是我们讨论的每一个主题的一个重要方面。当然，很容易将冲突视为问题，但事实上冲突对于每个协作创作过程都是必不可少的。我们只需要学会妥善处理它，以尊重和富有成效的方式解决分歧。我们还必须学会在冲突发生时不要回避或忽视冲突，否则可能会导致更大的冲突。我推荐玛丽·斯坎内尔 (Mary Scannell) 的《冲突解决游戏大全》，这是对这些主题的精彩探索。

Conflict between the members of a game development team is an important aspect of every one of these subjects we’ve been discussing. Of course, it’s easy to see conflict as a problem, but in fact conflict is essential and necessary to every collaborative creative process. We just have to learn to handle it well, working through disagreements respectfully and productively. We also have to learn not to avoid or ignore conflicts when they happen, which can lead to even bigger blow-ups down the line. I recommend The Big Book of Conflict Resolution Games by Mary Scannell as an excellent exploration of these subjects.

沟通、协作、领导力和冲突可能很难讨论，因为我们谈论这些话题往往显得太明显，以至于平淡无奇。作为话题，它们也充满了社会禁忌，因此直截了当地讨论它们可能会让你显得怪异、吹毛求疵或告密。但如果我们要建立一个重视尊重、信任和同意的团队，我们需要确保我们能够很好地沟通和协作。

Communication, collaboration, leadership, and conflict can be difficult to discuss, since the things we can say about them often seem so obvious as to be banal. As subjects, they’re also quite loaded with social taboo, so that discussing them in a straightforward way might mark you as a weirdo, hypercritical, or a snitch. But we need to make sure that we’re communicating and collaborating well if we’re going to build a team that values respect, trust, and consent.

幸运的是，有很多很好的技巧可以帮助我们进行本质上的“谈论谈话”，其中许多技巧感觉就像游戏一样。我们将在本书中介绍其中的一些技巧。

Luckily, there are lots of good techniques for helping us with what is essentially talking about talking, and many of them feel like games. We’ll look at some of them in the course of this book.

最基本的沟通技巧

The Most Basic Communication Skills

我在 Crystal Dynamics 工作期间，曾了解到有效沟通的基本技能：清晰、简洁和积极倾听。这三个简单的想法引起了我的强烈共鸣。我在整个职业生涯中都使用过它们，每个游戏开发者都可以从牢记它们中受益。让我们逐一看看这些。

Sometime while I was at Crystal Dynamics, I was introduced to the basic skills that underlie all effective communication: clarity, brevity, and active listening. These three simple ideas resonated with me very strongly. I’ve used them throughout my career, and every game developer can benefit from keeping them in mind. Let’s take a look at these, one at a time.

积极倾听

Listen Actively

倾听是最被低估的沟通技巧。积极倾听意味着注意别人说的话。这似乎很明显，但即使是善于倾听的人也会被自己的想法分散注意力。如果你像这样注意力不集中，道歉并要求与你交谈的人重复你错过的内容。

Listening is the most undervalued communication skill. Listening actively means paying attention to what someone is saying. This might seem obvious, but even people who are good listeners get distracted by their own thoughts. If you have a lapse in your attention like this, apologize and ask the person you’re speaking with to repeat what you missed.

积极倾听还有另一层含义：当你看着对方，偶尔点头，并在对方说话时说“嗯嗯”或“嗯嗯”时，向对方表明你正在听对方说的话。我们中的许多人在倾听对话时都会自然而然地这样做；我认为这就像计算机用来在互联网上建立和维持通信的“握手协议”。它表示“是的，我还在听你说话——继续。”同样的语言也可用于表示某个话题已经过时了。“嗯嗯，是的，我明白了”表示是时候转到下一个话题了。

There’s another meaning of active listening: it’s when you show someone that you’re following what they’re saying by looking at them, nodding occasionally, and saying “mm-hmm” or “uh-huh” as they speak. Many of us do this naturally as we listen in conversation; I think it’s like the “handshaking protocol” that computers use to establish and maintain communication over the Internet. It says, “Yes, I’m still receiving you—keep going.” The same kind of language can be used to signal when a subject is outliving its welcome. “Uh-huh, yep, I got it” says that it’s time to move on to the next topic.

并不是每个人都会自然而然地表现出这种关注。如果你不喜欢这样做，别担心。还有另一种方法可以向某人确认他们已经在我从事游戏设计工作期间，我学到了这种技巧，我发现它对于消除误解和节省时间非常有效。这种技巧称为镜像或反射，非常简单。在听完一个复杂的陈述或问题后，你会说：“让我把这句话反射给你，看看我是否理解正确了”，然后总结你认为听到对方说了什么。最有可能发生的事情是，对方会说：“差不多就是这样，但是…… ”然后补充一些你没完全理解的小细节。

Overt displays of attention like this don’t come naturally to everyone. If you don’t like doing it, don’t worry. There’s another way to confirm for someone that they’ve been understood. I was taught this technique partway into my game design career, and I find it enormously effective for eliminating misunderstandings and saving time. The technique is called either mirroring or reflecting, and it is very simple. At the end of a complex statement or question that you’ve listened to, you say, “Let me mirror that back to you to see if I’ve understood you correctly,” and then you summarize what you think you heard the other person say. What will most likely happen is that the other person will say, “That’s almost it, but …” and then fill in some small detail that you hadn’t quite got.

这看起来似乎简单得可笑，但却非常有效。在讨论游戏设计的复杂性时，误解很容易潜入我们对所做事情的理解中。镜像可以以几乎不可思议的效果可靠地揭示潜在的误解。几乎每次我使用这种技术时，我都会发现一些我忽略或误解的小而重要的细节。通常，这些误解除了浪费时间外，不会造成太大影响。有时它们可​​能会导致可怕的后果。让镜像成为您沟通工具包的一部分。

This might seem ridiculously simple, but it works like magic. When discussing the complexities of game design, it’s very easy for misconceptions to creep into our understanding of what we’re doing. Mirroring reliably exposes potential misunderstandings with almost uncanny effectiveness. Most every time I use this technique, I discover some small but important detail that I’d overlooked or misunderstood. Often those misunderstandings wouldn’t have amounted to much apart from lost time. Sometimes they could have led to dire consequences. Make mirroring a part of your communication toolkit.

积极倾听可以让你停下手头上的其他事情，将注意力全部集中在对方身上，从而为你带来加分。在我们忙于处理多项任务的生活中，手机几乎总是拿在手里，人们很少这样做。但多任务处理分散注意力的代价往往是工作效率低下、容易出错，沟通无效或没有影响力。

You get bonus points for active listening by stopping everything else that you’re doing and focusing your whole attention on the person you’re listening to. In our multitasking lives and with our phones almost always in our hands, it’s becoming quite rare for people to do this. But the divided attention of multitasking often comes at a price of work that is inefficient and error-prone, and communication that is ineffective or uninfluential.

如果你一边在和别人打电话一边浏览社交媒体，你可能会错过他们说的一些重要内容。如果你在队友告诉你一些关于游戏设计的重要信息时继续编码，他们可能会离开你的办公桌，认为你没有听到他们说的话，或者你不在乎。最好的积极倾听可以让别人清楚地知道你重视他们说的话，这会带来强烈的情感益处，并建立尊重和信任。

If you’re reading social media while talking to someone on the phone, you might miss something important that they say. If you keep coding while a teammate is telling you something important about the game’s design, they might walk away from your desk thinking that you didn’t hear them or that you don’t care. The best active listening lets others clearly know that you value what they’re saying, which has a strong emotional benefit and builds respect and trust.

清晰、简洁、积极倾听。当你们的沟通出现问题时——当事情变得混乱或情绪化，从而产生问题时——回到这三个朋友身边，他们会引导你走上正轨。

Clarity, brevity, active listening. When things go wrong in your communication—when things get confused or emotional in a way that is creating problems—come back to those three friends and they will steer you right.

三明治

Sandwiching

我因使用并热爱一种名为“三明治”的沟通技巧而闻名，有时甚至因此被人取笑。我不在乎——“三明治”是一种非常有效的技巧，可用于对某人的创意作品或工作表现给予建设性的批评性反馈，它在行业和学术界都让我受益匪浅。

I am well known for my use of and love for the communication technique known as sandwiching, to the point where I sometimes get teased about it. I don’t care—sandwiching is a powerful technique to use when giving someone constructively critical feedback about their creative work or their performance on the job, and it has served me well in both industry and academia.

给别人反馈时，先赞美，告诉他们你喜欢的东西。这是三明治的第一片面包。这不能只是空洞的赞美：你必须真诚，所以选择你真正喜欢的东西。如果你一开始找不到你喜欢的东西，再看看。我相信每一个创造性的行为都有值得钦佩的地方——可能是这个人付出了一些努力，或者他们真的把一些小细节做到了极致，尽管有重大问题需要讨论。

When giving someone feedback, start with a compliment, telling them something you like. This is the first slice of bread in the sandwich. This can’t just be empty praise: you have to be authentic, so choose something that you actually like. If you can’t find anything you like at first, look again. I believe there is something to admire in every act of creativity—it might be that the person put in some effort, or that they really aced some small detail, even though there are major problems to discuss.

第一次赞美有几个作用。首先，这是表达尊重的简单明了的方式。尊重是信任的基础，如果我们能够给予和接受建设性的批评，从而使我们的工作更出色，那么信任就是我们要培养的。

This first compliment plays a few roles. First, it’s a clear and easy way to show respect. Respect is the basis for trust, and trust is what we want to nurture if we’re going to be able to give and receive the constructive criticism we need to make our work great.

其次，对于创意人士来说，听听别人在自己的游戏或表现中做了哪些改进其实很有用。如果我们做对了的事情得不到表扬，就很难确定自己的工作中有什么价值。

Second, it’s actually useful for creative people to hear what is working for others in their game or in their performance. Without praise for the things we’re getting right, it can be hard to know for sure what is of value in our work.

第三，赞美可能在当前交流中起到营造良好情绪的作用。如果我们对作品和批评者感觉良好，当他们给我们建设性批评时，我们可能更能听懂他们说的话。

And third, a compliment may play some role in creating good emotion around the current act of communication. If we’re feeling good about the work and about the person critiquing it, we may be more able to hear what they’re saying when they give us their constructive critique.

我在给出反馈时经常会提到几件我喜欢的事情，因为我知道，我越清楚地向别人表明我喜欢他们的工作并尊重他们的能力，我就能越深入地提出建设性的批评。

I will often mention several things that I like when I’m giving feedback, because I know that the more clearly I signal to someone that I like their work and respect their abilities, the more deeply I can dive with my constructive criticism.

三明治中的馅料就是建设性的批评，就像馅料是三明治中最有营养和最美味的部分一样，你的建设性批评是你必须传达的最重要的信息。在这本书中，我们将讨论游戏设计作为一种迭代艺术形式，而我们收到的关于我们工作的建设性批评是迭代循环的重要组成部分。我们制作一些东西，把它给别人玩，他们给我们他们的建设性批评（以某种方式，在这种情况下是口头的），然后我们对其进行评估。根据收到的反馈，我们对所构建的内容进行修改，然后再次进行游戏测试。

The filling in the sandwich is constructive criticism, and just as the filling is the most nutritious and flavorful part of a sandwich, your constructive criticism is the most important information that you have to convey. Throughout this book we’ll be discussing game design as an iterative art form, and the constructive criticism that we receive about our work is an important part of the iterative loop. We build something, we give it to someone to play, they give us their constructive criticism (in one way or another, in this case, verbally), which we then evaluate. In light of the feedback we’ve received, we make changes to what we built, and we playtest again.

因此，您给出的建设性批评会谈论您不喜欢刚刚演奏的内容（或某人的表演），但这样做的方式是有用的。它不会破坏；它会产生积极的影响。为了做好这一点，我们必须谨慎选择建设性批评的措辞。

So, the constructive criticism you give talks about what you didn’t like about what you just played (or about someone’s performance), but it does so in a way that is useful. It doesn’t tear down; it builds up. In order to do this well we have to choose the words of our constructive criticism carefully.

在第 12 章中，我们将更深入地探讨如何给予和接受良好的反馈。但为了帮助您入门，我有三个非常简单的原则来提出建设性的批评：直接、具体，批评工作而不是批评人。

In chapter 12 we’ll look more deeply at giving and receiving good feedback. But to get you started, I have three very simple principles for giving constructive criticism: be direct, be specific, and criticize the work, not the person.

提出建设性批评时，要直截了当。不要试图将你的赞美夹在建设性批评的三明治馅料中。不要拐弯抹角，也不要试图将你的批评伪装成赞美。不要暗示你的批评，也不要消极被动地表达批评。要有勇气直言不讳，说出你认为不好的地方、你不喜欢的地方，或者你认为需要进一步改进的地方。不要不友善或咄咄逼人：说话要冷静，要友好、友好。你花时间使用三明治，所以你有权利直接提出你的建设性批评。

When giving constructive criticism, be direct. Don’t try and mix the bread of your compliments in with the sandwich filling of your constructive criticism. Don’t beat around the bush or try and disguise your criticism as a compliment. Don’t hint at your criticism or frame it passive-aggressively. Have the courage to come right out and say what you think isn’t good, what you don’t like, or what you think could use more work. Don’t be unkind or aggressive: speak calmly, and in a friendly, collegial way. You’re taking the time to use sandwiching, so you’ve earned the right to be direct with your constructive criticism.

我说的“具体”是指仅仅说“这个不好”或“我不喜欢这个”是不够的。你应该说说你认为它不好的原因，或者你不喜欢它的原因。不要说“这个跳跃机制不好”，而要说“这个跳跃机制不好，因为按下按钮和玩家角色离开地面之间有一个明显的停顿——感觉很粘，没有反应。”

By be specific, I mean that it isn’t enough to say, “This isn’t good” or “I don’t like this.” You should say why you think it isn’t good, or why you don’t like it. Instead of saying, “This jump mechanic isn’t good,” say, “This jump mechanic isn’t good because there’s a noticeable pause between pressing the button and the player-character leaving the ground—it feels sticky and unresponsive.”

第三条原则是批评作品而不是批评人，这是我从顽皮狗工作室总裁埃文·威尔斯那里学到的。埃文制定了一条简单的规则，那就是始终批评我们在屏幕上看到的游戏内容、通过扬声器听到的内容以及通过控制器感受到的内容，确保永远不要批评创作了我们所看到的作品的人。

The third principle—criticize the work, not the person—was something that I picked up from Naughty Dog studio president Evan Wells. Evan makes it a simple rule to always criticize what we can see of the game on screen, hear through the speakers, and feel through the controller, making sure never to criticize the person who made the work we are looking at.

如果你遵循批评工作而不是批评人的规则，那么人们会感到沮丧或愤怒的可能性就会降低，而且你还能让每个人都专注于提高游戏质量。这似乎很明显，但出乎意料的是，我们很容易从说“这个游戏机制不好”转变为说“你制作这个游戏机制的方式不好”。通过专注于工作以及可以改进的地方，我们总能制定出一个可行的计划来改进它，而不会疏远做这项工作的人。

If you follow this rule of criticizing the work, not the person, you lower the chance that someone will get discouraged or angry, and you keep everyone’s focus on improving the quality of the game. This might seem obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to stray from saying, “This game mechanic isn’t good” to saying, “The way that you made this game mechanic isn’t good.” By staying focused on the work, and what could be improved about it, we can always devise an actionable plan for making it better, without alienating the person doing the work.

这就是第一片赞美和建设性批评的夹层——第二片呢？当我们夹着东西时，通常用另一句赞美来结束反馈环节。我通常会尝试找到一些我之前没有提到的东西，但只要提醒他们你喜欢什么就足够了。有时，在建设性批评的背景下，还有更多值得称赞的话要说。（“我认为，考虑到跳跃控制还有更多工作要做，我喜欢的部分——动画和音效——一旦这些问题得到解决，感觉会更好。”）

So that’s the first slice of compliment bread and the filling of constructive criticism—what about the second slice of bread? When we’re sandwiching, it’s usual to conclude the feedback session with another compliment. I usually try and find something I hadn’t already mentioned, but it can be enough just to remind them what you liked. Sometimes there’s something more to say that’s complimentary in light of the constructive criticism. (“I think that, given that there’s more work to do on the jump controls, the part that I liked—the animations and sound effects—will feel even better once these problems are solved.”)

第二片面包通常比第一片面包薄——最后的积极评论通常会更快给出，特别是如果游戏制作者很好地接受了建设性的批评。如果有人对我的建设性批评表现出难以处理的情绪反应，我会花更多时间在最后给出一些额外的赞美，并展开对话，让游戏制作者有机会回应我的评论或解释他们的工作。我会花时间听他们说，也许在我们的谈话中，我们可以让游戏制作者对他们的工作感到满意，并有一个可行的计划来改进它。

The second slice of bread is often thinner than the first—the concluding positive comments are usually given more quickly, especially if the constructive criticism was received well by the game maker. If someone shows signs of having a difficult-to-deal-with emotional reaction to my constructive criticism, I’ll take rather more time to give some additional compliments at the end and will open up into a conversation, giving the game maker a chance to respond to my comments or explain their work. I’ll take the time to hear them out, and maybe in our conversation we can get to a place where the game maker feels good about their work and has an actionable plan for making it better.

有些人称这种技巧为“赞美三明治”，有些人则称其为“便便三明治”。这可能意味着他们认为建设性的批评是便便，但更有可能的是，他们与某人发生过冲突，而这个人没有使用真诚的赞美，而是以“夹心”作为借口来不友善。您可以利用“夹心”作为一个机会来改变怀疑者的想法，并向他们展示这种技巧确实有效。

Some people call this technique “the compliment sandwich,” and some call it “the poop sandwich.” That might mean they think that constructive criticism is poop, but it’s more likely that they had a run-in with someone who didn’t use authentic compliments and instead used sandwiching as an excuse to be unkind. You can use sandwiching as an opportunity to change the minds of skeptics and to show them that this technique actually works.

夹层反馈并非良好反馈的终极手段；它只是入门工具包。当你与某人之间尚未建立起牢固的尊重和信任关系时，也许当你对他们不太了解或与他们相处不融洽时，夹层反馈最有效。

Sandwiching isn’t the be-all and end-all of good feedback; it’s only a starter kit. It works best when you don’t yet have a strong bond of respect and trust with someone, maybe when you don’t know them very well or don’t get along with them easily.

建立团队成员之间的尊重和信任是成功游戏设计实践的关键。尊重源自重视彼此的经验、能力、价值观和意图，并达成共识，即尊重是相互的。当你知道你可以依靠别人为每个人的最大利益行事、做出正确的决定、成为优秀的合作者、对团队慷慨大方的同时追求自己的价值观时，信任就会产生。

Building respect and trust between team members is a key aspect of a strong game design practice. Respect comes from valuing each other’s experience, ability, values, and intentions, and having a shared understanding that the respect is mutual. Trust arises when you know you can rely on someone else to act in everyone’s best interests, to make good decisions, and to be a good collaborator, being generous to the team while also acting in pursuit of their own values.

你与某人的关系发展得越深、越牢固，夹层的需求就越少。随着时间的推移，三明治里的面包会变得越来越薄，直到完全消失，你可以直接向某人提出建设性的批评，并让他们满意。你很快就会创造出一种以合作为核心的团队文化，这反过来又会让你的团队制作出真正优秀的游戏。

The more your relationship with someone develops and strengthens, the less need there is for sandwiching. The bread in your sandwiches will get thinner and thinner over time, until it disappears completely, and you can give someone your constructive criticism directly and have it land well with them. You’ll soon create a team culture rich with strong values around collaboration, which will in turn allow your team to make truly excellent games.

尊重、信任和同意

Respect, Trust, and Consent

最强大的团队是团队成员相互尊重、彼此之间建立牢固的信任纽带并确保每个人都同意我们参与工作的方式的团队。我们通过使用沟通技巧、认真倾听每个人的意见并充分考虑每个人的世界观来表达彼此的尊重。只要我们坚持每个人的经历和信念都有价值的态度，表达尊重不会花费我们任何东西，除了时间和注意力。当我们互相尊重时，我们表明我们重视彼此，包括我们的工作、时间和技能。

The strongest teams are those where the team members respect each other, have strong bonds of trust between them, and make sure that everyone is consenting to the ways we’re involved in the work we’re doing. We show each other respect by using our communication skills, listening attentively to what each of us has to say, and giving full consideration to each of our worldviews. Showing respect doesn’t cost us anything apart from our time and attention, as long as we hold an attitude that everyone’s experiences and beliefs have value. When we show each other respect, we’re showing that we value each other, including our work, time, and skill.

当我们在相互尊重的氛围中一起工作，共同完成游戏开发的艰巨工作时，信任自然而然地就会产生。如果我过去帮助过你，并向你表明我尊重你，愿意优先考虑你的努力和福祉以及我自己的努力和福祉，那么你就会信任我。将来，我们将能够更快、更高效、更少压力地一起完成艰难的工作。团队成员之间的信任使我们共同完成的极其复杂的工作中的一切都更加顺利。

When we work together in an atmosphere of respect, doing the difficult work of game development together, then trust follows naturally. If I have helped you in the past and shown you that I respect you and am willing to prioritize your effort and well-being as well as my own, then you will come to trust me. In the future, we will be able to do difficult work together more quickly, efficiently, and with less stress. Trust between team members makes everything run more smoothly in the extremely complex work that we’re doing together.

在我们的生活中，包括游戏开发团队中，同意都很重要。我们必须确保团队中的每个人都清楚我们要求他们做什么，并且同意这样做，而不是强迫他们。这尤其适用于加班和报酬问题——我们是否按照加入团队时预期的工作时间工作，以及我们是否得到了合理的报酬。这也与我们工作的道德问题有关：我们是否同意我们正在制作的游戏中的价值。

Consent is important everywhere in our lives, including on our game development teams. We have to be sure that everyone on our team clearly understands what we’re asking them to do, and has agreed to do it, without coercion. This is applicable especially around questions of overtime and compensation—whether we’re working for the numbers of hours that we expected to work when we joined a team, and whether we’re being paid properly for our time. It is also relevant around ethical matters pertaining to our work: whether we agree with the values in the games that we’re making.

如果我们建立并维持一个尊重、信任和同意的环境，那么我们作为游戏开发者就能蓬勃发展。要创造这种环境，我们需要良好的沟通和协作。沟通确实是一项游戏设计技能。

If we build and maintain an environment of respect, trust, and consent, then we are setting ourselves up to flourish as game developers. To create this environment, we need to communicate and collaborate well. Communication truly is a game design skill.

2. 1. Walter Murch 访谈，载于 Wohl，《Final Cut Pro 编辑技术》，524。

3. 1.  Walter Murch interview in Wohl, Editing Techniques with Final Cut Pro, 524.

体验目标

Experience Goals

体验目标的概念最早是在 2008 年 Tracy Fullerton 的第二版游戏设计研讨会上引入游戏设计文献^的。1 Tracy 告诉我：“我添加了 [体验目标的概念]，因为我想阐明我们在 [南加州大学游戏创新实验室] 中使用的流程，这与人们谈论游戏设计流程的方式（以功能或支柱为驱动）截然不同。”

The idea of an experience goal was first introduced into the game design literature in 2008 with the second edition of Tracy Fullerton’s Game Design Workshop.¹ As Tracy told me, “I added [the concept of experience goals] because I was trying to clarify the process we were using in [the USC Game Innovation Lab], which was so different from the way that people were speaking about game design process in general—as feature- or pillar-driven.”

体验目标就是你希望玩家拥有的体验类型，通常用情感体验来描述。虽然玩游戏的原因有很多，但游戏带给我们的情感通常是我们花时间玩游戏的原因：获胜的满足感和失败的挫败感、潜行游戏的紧张焦虑、艺术游戏的微妙忧郁或派对游戏的欢笑。

An experience goal is the kind of experience you want your players to have, often described in terms of an emotional experience. While there are many reasons to play a game, the emotions that games give us are usually why we spend time with them: the satisfaction of winning and the frustration of losing, the tense anxiety of a stealth game, the nuanced melancholy of an arthouse game, or the joyful laughter of a party game.

你的项目目标不必描述你将如何通过游戏设计创造体验——尽管，正如我们稍后会看到的，你的原型应该已经让你对如何做到这一点有了一个很好的了解。通过关注我们希望玩家拥有的体验，我们可以开始摆脱对玩游戏是什么或不是什么的先入之见。我们可以摆脱传统的、有限的观念关于乐趣，探索游戏设计广泛而深刻的表现力。我相信，在构思结束时为我们的游戏设定一个体验目标是创新游戏设计以及理解游戏作为一种艺术形式的关键。

Your project goals don’t have to describe how you’ll create the experience through the design of your game—although, as we’ll see later, your prototypes should have given you a decent idea of how you’ll do it. By focusing on the experience that we want the player to have, we can begin to free ourselves from our preconceptions about what playing a game is or isn’t like. We can move away from traditional, limited ideas about fun, and explore the wide, deep expressive power of game design. It’s my belief that establishing an experience goal for our game at the end of ideation is the key to innovating in game design and to understanding games as an art form.

Tracy Fullerton、MDA 框架和顽皮狗

Tracy Fullerton, the MDA Framework, and Naughty Dog

正如我所提到的，我从 Tracy Fullerton 的作品中了解到了这种对体验目标的关注。在《游戏设计研讨会》的一篇关于与游戏设计师 Jenova Chen 和 Kellee Santiago 以及南加州大学游戏创新实验室的学生团队合作开发Cloud 的附文中，Tracy 说道：

As I mentioned, I get this focus on experience goals from the work of Tracy Fullerton. In Game Design Workshop, in a sidebar essay about working on Cloud with game designers Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago and a team of students in the USC Game Innovation Lab, Tracy says:

当我们开始开发《云》时，我们只有一个创新设计目标：以某种方式唤起你在晴朗的晴天躺在草地上仰望天空中飘过的云朵时所感受到的放松和快乐。……有时，我们（所有人）都梦想着飞上云朵，移动它们，将它们塑造成有趣的生物、笑脸或棒棒糖，或者任何你能想到的东西。对于一款游戏来说，这似乎是一个全新的领域。它似乎既冒险又有趣。所以我们决定试一试^。2

When we began working on Cloud, we had only an innovation design goal: to somehow evoke the feeling of relaxation and joy that you get when you lie back in the grass on a clear sunny day and look up at the clouds wandering across the sky.… At some time or another, we’ve (all) dreamed of flying up in the clouds and moving them, shaping them into funny creatures or smiley faces or lollipops, or whatever comes to mind. It seemed like entirely new territory for a game. It seemed risky and interesting. So we decided to give it a try.²

Tracy 在这里称之为创新目标：她在写这篇文章时还没有创造“体验目标”这个词。我们现在可以看到， Cloud团队正在设定一个体验目标。他们最初并不知道如何创造这种轻松、愉悦的体验。他们甚至不知道自己能否创造这种体验。但是，通过设定意图并开始探索，他们迈出了迈向游戏设计新领域的第一步。

Tracy calls it an innovation goal here: she had not yet coined the term experience goal when she wrote this essay. We can see now that the Cloud team was setting an experience goal. They didn’t initially know how they were going to create this relaxing, joyous experience. They didn’t even know if they could create it. But by setting an intention and beginning to explore toward it, they made their first bold move toward a new frontier for game design.

此举确立了一种永远改变游戏行业的设计理念。Cloud团队的核心成员后来创立了 thatgamecompany，并创作了获奖游戏Flow、Flow和 2012 年度游戏Journey 。从与知名艺术家 Bill Viola 共同设计的游戏The Night Journey，到广受好评的游戏Walden：一款以趣味和系统的方式呈现亨利·戴维·梭罗 (Henry David Thoreau) 的作品和世界的游戏，Tracy 在自己的获奖实践中也运用了类似的体验目标设定技巧。Tracy 继续突破游戏的极限，在她的创作过程和艺术上不断创新。

That move would set in place a design philosophy that changed the game industry forever. The core of the Cloud team would go on to found thatgamecompany, and to create the award-winning games Flow, Flower, and the 2012 Game of the Year, Journey. Tracy has used similar experience goal–setting techniques throughout her own award-winning practice, from The Night Journey, the game that she codesigned with the renowned artist Bill Viola, to her widely acclaimed Walden: a game, a playful and systematic take on the work and world of Henry David Thoreau. Tracy has continued to push the envelope of what games can do, innovating in her process as well as her art.

著名的 MDA 框架（机制、动态和美学）也注重玩家体验。该框架由 Robin Hunicke、Marc LeBlanc 和 Robert Zubek 在他们开创性的 2004 年论文“MDA：游戏设计和游戏研究的正式方法”中提出，旨在帮助我们设计和分析游戏。

The famous MDA framework—mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics—also places a focus on player experience. The framework was proposed by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek in their groundbreaking 2004 paper “MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research” and seeks to help us both design and analyze games.

MDA 中的美学是玩家在由游戏规则决定的动态系统中玩游戏时产生的体验。MDA 作者的目标之一是帮助我们更深入地理解“乐趣”这个常常含糊不清的概念，并拓展我们对游戏可以给我们带来哪些体验的思考。

The aesthetics in MDA are the experiences produced as the player plays in the dynamic system determined by the rules of the game. One of the goals of the MDA authors was to help us understand the often-nebulous idea of “fun” in a deeper way, and to expand our thinking about the kinds of experiences that games could give us.

设定体验目标（图 7.1 ）是我们顽皮狗团队开发《神秘海域》世界的方式。 《神秘海域：德雷克的宝藏》游戏总监 Amy Hennig与高级概念艺术家 Shaddy Safadi 和团队合作，用一套简明的规则定义了我们想要创造的体验类型，并在工作室的公共区域展示了这些规则。这些规则帮助我们在整个系列的开发过程中保持正轨。我将它们视为体验目标，以一种有助于我们设计《神秘海域》游戏的方式定义了一个可能性空间。

Setting experience goals (figure 7.1) was how our team at Naughty Dog developed the world of Uncharted. Working with senior concept artist Shaddy Safadi and the team, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune game director Amy Hennig defined the type of experiences that we wanted to create in a concise set of rules, which we displayed in a public area in the studio. These rules helped us stay on track throughout the development of the entire series. I see them as experience goals, defining a space of possibility in a way that helped us design the Uncharted games.

情感

Emotion

游戏带给我们的情感感受吸引我们进入游戏并让我们继续玩下去。多年来，游戏设计师常常只考虑主宰游戏史前五千年的两种情感：胜利的喜悦和失败的沮丧。但我们不应低估这些情感的力量。正如 Jesper Juul 在《失败的艺术：论玩电子游戏的痛苦》中指出的那样，我们在游戏中经历的失败并非没有其自身的乐趣。除了喜悦和沮丧之外，还常常存在其他情感：游戏的乐趣、驱动探索的好奇心以及完成游戏的满足感。

The emotional feelings that games give us are what draw us into a game and keep us playing. For many years, game designers often didn’t think beyond the two emotions that dominated the first five thousand years of the history of games: the joy of victory, and the frustration of defeat. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of these emotions, though. As Jesper Juul points out in The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games, the failure that we experience in games is not without its own kind of pleasure. Other emotions are often present alongside joy and frustration: the delight of play, the curiosity that drives exploration, and the satisfaction of completion.

如今，游戏设计师对游戏可能激发玩家的各种情感很感兴趣。也许正因为如此，在所有不同类型的体验中，情感体验往往是我们游戏体验目标中最有用的。在我能想到的大多数艺术形式中，我们的思想、记忆、想象、意志和感知体验交织在一起，形成了一个复杂的编织物，产生了伟大艺术带给我们的强烈而微妙的情感。

Today, game designers are interested in the wide range of emotion that games might provoke in their audience of players. Perhaps as a result, out of all the different types of experience, emotional experiences are often by far the most useful to us as experience goals for our games. In most every art form that I can think of, our experiences of thought, memory, imagination, will, and perception weave together in a complex braid that results in the powerful, nuanced emotion that great art brings out of us.

因此，游戏设计师必须具备“情感素养”，能够清晰准确地讨论各种可能的情感。对于我们许多人来说，这比听起来要难。多年来，许多文化都禁止广泛谈论情感。尤其是男性，他们经常成为这种禁忌的对象。

Therefore, it seems very important that game designers be “emotionally literate,” able to discuss a wide range of possible emotions with clarity and accuracy. For many of us, that’s harder than it sounds. Many cultures down the years have made it taboo to speak extensively about emotion. Men in particular have often been made the subject of that taboo.

为了帮助人们拓展情感素养，我会提醒他们注意皮克斯 2015 年电影《头脑特工队》中的五个角色：快乐、悲伤、恐惧、愤怒和厌恶。这些角色基于加州大学旧金山分校心理学家保罗·埃克曼博士的研究成果，他率先研究了情绪与面部表情的关系。埃克曼的研究确定了世界各地文化的人们在面部表现出的七种主要情绪：《头脑特工队》中角色的名字就源于这五种情绪，此外还有惊讶和蔑视。

To help people expand their emotional literacy, I remind them of the characters of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust, five of the characters in Pixar’s 2015 film, Inside Out. These characters were based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman, a UC San Francisco psychologist who pioneered the study of emotions in their relation to facial expressions. Ekman’s research identified seven primary emotions that people from cultures throughout the world show in their faces: the five that the Inside Out characters are named for, and also surprise and contempt.

这七种情绪可以作为我们为游戏设定情感体验目标的良好起点。故事驱动的游戏可能会在不同时间引发所有七种情绪，但我们可以通过选择只关注其中几种情绪，或者只关注其中一种情绪，为整个游戏设定一个总体方向。

This palette of seven emotions could be a strong starting point in helping us set an emotional experience goal for a game. It’s probable that a story-driven game will invoke all seven emotions at different times, but we can give our whole game an overall direction by choosing to focus on just a few of these, or maybe on just one.

要想更全面地了解情绪，可以看看爱因斯坦医学院心理学家罗伯特·普拉奇克博士的研究成果，他提出了一种心理进化的情绪反应分类方法。除了艾克曼的大多数主要情绪外，普拉奇克还添加了期待和信任，并在每个组中显示了不同程度的情绪强度。他的作品通常用图 7.2所示的“情绪之轮”来说明。从普拉奇克轮盘中随机挑选一种情绪并尝试设计一款引发这种情绪的小游戏是一项很好的游戏设计练习。

For a wider view of emotion, look to the work of Dr. Robert Plutchik, a psychologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who proposed a psychoevolutionary classification for emotional responses. Alongside most of Ekman’s primary emotions, Plutchik added anticipation and trust, and showed different levels of emotional intensity in each group. His work is often illustrated with the “wheel of emotions” shown in figure 7.2. It’s a good game design exercise to randomly pick an emotion from Plutchik’s wheel and attempt to design a small game that elicits that emotion.

写下你的体验目标

Writing Down Your Experience Goals

体验目标可以说是我们项目目标中最重要的一个。我强烈建议你专注于情感，但你应该选择最适合你和你的创作意图的体验类型。

The experience goal is arguably the most important of our project goals. I strongly recommend that you focus on emotion, but you should choose the type of experience that works best for you and your creative intention.

再次强调，不要试图描述你的游戏将如何为玩家创造这种体验。只需明确地将重点放在核心体验目标上，用尽可能清晰简洁的语言描述它。尽量让你的体验目标具体而具体，并用一句话总结每个目标。考虑使用普拉奇克情绪轮中的词语。大胆地结合概念来创造新的想法，但要避免使用将太多不同体验打包在一起的冗长的句子。清晰和简洁是这里的关键。

Again, don’t try to describe how your game will create this experience for your players. Just clearly isolate and focus on a core experience goal, describing it in language that is as clear and concise as possible. Try to make your experience goals specific and concrete, and summarize each one with a single sentence. Consider using words from Plutchik’s wheel of emotions. Be bold in combining concepts to create new ideas, but avoid run-on sentences that pack too many different experiences together. Clarity and brevity are the keys here.

不要包含太过松散或模糊的目标，比如“为玩家创造有趣且愉悦的体验”——这种体验目标太过笼统，无法成功指导你的设计。

Don’t include goals that are too loose or too vague, such as “create an interesting and entertaining experience for the player”—this kind of experience goal is too generic to guide your design successfully.

从角色扮演或幻想的实现角度来谈论游戏给玩家带来的体验是很有用的 — — “成为终极太空英雄”或“成为繁忙医院的医生”。在游戏行业中，你有时会听到体验目标被称为游戏的“本质陈述”、“愿景陈述”、“X 陈述”或“核心幻想”。从核心游戏设计和叙事元素的混合角度讨论游戏体验也很有价值：你会听到人们谈论游戏的“支柱”或“主题”。所有这些都很好。有很多方法可以描述游戏将提供的体验。无论你怎么称呼它们，选择体验目标都会指导你创作游戏。

It can be useful to talk about the experience that a game gives its players in terms of role-playing, or the fulfillment of a fantasy—“be the ultimate spacefaring hero” or “be a doctor in a busy hospital.” In the game industry, you’ll sometimes hear experience goals framed as the “essence statement,” “vision statement,” “X statement,” or “core fantasy” of a game. It can also be valuable to discuss the experience of the game in terms of a mixture of core game design and narrative elements: you’ll hear people talk about the “pillars” or the “themes” of a game. All of this is fine. There are many ways to describe the experience that a game will give. Whatever you call them, choosing experience goals will guide you in the creation of your game.

设计目标

Design Goals

您的设计目标与体验目标相辅相成。它们可能与游戏所运行的硬件、游戏类型、游戏机制或界面类型有关。您可能希望使用某种叙事风格、希望解决某些主题、希望通过游戏实现某些目标，或者希望设置其他类型的约束。

Your design goals complement your experience goal. They will probably be related to the hardware your game runs on, the genre of the game, the game’s mechanics, or the type of interface it has. There might be a narrative style that you want to use, some subject matter that you want to address, something you want to accomplish with your game, or some other type of constraint that you want to set.

如果在构思结束时，你 100% 确定要用游戏实现什么，那么就把它写在你的设计目标中。你的设计目标可能与你的体验目标重叠，也可能完全不同。

If, by the end of ideation, there’s anything that you’re 100 percent confident that you want to do with your game, then write it down in your design goals. Your design goals might overlap with your experience goal, or they might be totally separate.

一些常见的设计目标类别包括：

Some common categories of design goals are:

• 运行游戏的硬件。您的游戏将在什么平台上运行？PC 还是 Mac？移动设备？游戏机？健身追踪器、手表还是耳机？自动驾驶汽车的控制台还是冰箱？随着数字技术逐渐渗透到我们周围的更多物体和环境中，您对硬件平台的选择只会越来越多。您不必将硬件平台与项目目标锁定在一起，但这样做可以帮助您自信地前进，并可能节省您以后的设计时间。这个设计目标还与受众和市场有着重要的关系。如果您想接触特定的玩家群体，您必须考虑他们在什么硬件平台上玩游戏。
• The hardware your game will run on. What platform will your game run on? PC or Mac? A mobile device? A game console? A fitness tracker, a watch, or some earbuds? A self-driving car’s console, or a refrigerator? As digital technology makes its way into more of the objects and environments around us, your choice of hardware platforms is only going to increase. You don’t have to lock in your hardware platform with your project goals, but doing so can help you move forward confidently and might save you design time later. This design goal also has an important relationship with audience and market. If you want to reach a particular group of players, you have to consider what hardware platforms they play games on.
• 游戏机制、动词和玩家活动. 思考一下您所想象的游戏类型，并考虑将其中至少一些游戏机制、动词和玩家活动融入您的设计目标中。
• Game mechanics, verbs, and player activities. Think about the types of play in the game you’re imagining and consider committing to at least some of those game mechanics, verbs, and player activities with your design goals.
• 接口约定玩家将如何控制您的游戏？使用键盘和鼠标还是游戏控制器？在触摸屏上，通过点击、按住、捏合和滑动？使用检测其身体在空间中的位置或虚拟现实中注视方向的设备？在构思结束时锁定一两个界面约定可以让您的项目朝着好的方向发展。
• Interface conventions. How will the player control your game? Using a keyboard and mouse or a game controller? On a touchscreen, by tapping, holding, pinching, and swiping? Using a device that detects the position of their body in space, or the direction of their gaze in virtual reality? Locking in one or two interface conventions at the end of ideation can send your project in a good direction.
• 您想要使用的特殊硬件或软件。您可能决定使用虚拟现实耳机、移动增强现实框架或“alt-controller”（专门设计的替代控制器），就像每年在 alt.ctrl.GDC 节上看到的那样。
• Special hardware or software you want to use. You might decide to use a virtual reality headset, an augmented reality framework for mobile, or an “alt-controller” (a specially designed alternative controller) like those seen each year in the alt.ctrl.GDC festival.
• 你的游戏类型。如果您设想的游戏符合某种游戏玩法或叙事类型，请在您的设计目标中说明。请记住，最有创意的作品通常会颠覆类型，为我们带来新鲜而生动的东西。
• Your game’s genre. If the game you’re imagining fits into a genre of gameplay or narrative, say so in your design goals. Remember, the most creative works often subvert genre to bring us something fresh and lively.
• 你的游戏主题用直白的字面意思来解释：你的游戏是关于什么的？它可能是关于一只走失的小狗、一场总统选举，或者一对努力复合的恋人。
• Your game’s subject matter. In straightforwardly literal terms: what is your game about? It might be about a lost puppy, a presidential election, or lovers struggling to reunite.
• 你的游戏主题游戏主题是游戏叙事的中心话题。不同的作者对于何时设定故事主题有不同的看法。有些人在开始时就设定了，而其他人则在创作过程中逐渐形成主题。在《神秘海域 2：盗贼同盟》的开发初期，我们就决定我们的游戏将围绕信任和背叛展开，这有助于我们塑造故事。如果你能在构思结束时决定游戏主题，那么就将其与设计目标结合起来。
• Your game’s theme. Your game’s theme is the central topic addressed by your game’s narrative. Different authors have different opinions about when to set the theme of a story they’re writing. Some do it at the start; others find it emerging as they work. Very early on in the development of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves we decided that our game would be about trust and betrayal, and that helped us to shape our story. If you can decide your game’s theme at the end of ideation, set it in place with your design goals.
• 游戏的艺术指导目标。在构思结束时，您可能会对游戏的艺术方向有一个清晰的想法，这可能是您进行过的一些研究或制作的原型的结果。
• Your game’s art direction goals. You might have a strong idea by the end of ideation about the art direction of your game, possibly as a result of some research you’ve done or a prototype you made.
• 你的游戏的艺术目标。如果您是一位以电子游戏为艺术形式的艺术家，那么您可能会在游戏设计中考虑一些艺术目标。也许您正在制作一款游戏来表达您的感受或想法。您可能希望它具有娱乐性，或者表达严肃的观点，或者两者兼而有之。如果您是一位对社会或政治干预感兴趣的艺术家，这可能与……重叠。
• Your game’s artistic goals. If you are an artist using videogames as your chosen art form, you might have some artistic goals in mind for your game. Perhaps you are making a game to express something you feel or an idea you have. You might wish to be entertaining, or to make a serious point, or some mixture of both. If you are an artist interested in social or political interventions, this might overlap with …
• 您的游戏的影响目标。您可能决定制作一款对世界有一定影响的游戏——这类游戏通常被称为影响游戏、严肃游戏、功能游戏、应用游戏或转型游戏。也许您希望您的游戏具有教育意义，对玩家的健康产生积极影响，或者对政治问题进行争论。萨布丽娜·库利巴 (Sabrina Culyba) 的书《转型框架：转型游戏开发的过程工具》对于那些寻求设计和评估旨在为玩家带来持久变化的游戏的人来说是一份宝贵的资源。
• Your game’s impact goals. You might decide to make a game that has some impact in the world—these kinds of games are often called impact games, serious games, functional games, applied games, or transformational games. Perhaps you want your game to be educational, to have a positive impact on the health of your players, or to make an argument about something political. Sabrina Culyba’s book The Transformational Framework: A Process Tool for the Development of Transformational Games is an invaluable resource for those seeking to design and assess games that have the intention of creating lasting change in players.

尽管我在这里描述了许多不同类型的设计目标，但我认为在构思结束时只设定少数设计目标是值得的。我们想要做的是给自己一个前进的方向，同时在游戏开发过程中仍留有足够的回旋余地。

Even though I’ve described many different types of design goal here, I think it pays to only set a small number of design goals at the end of ideation. What we want to do is to give ourselves a direction to move in, while still allowing ourselves plenty of room for maneuver as we go forward through our game’s development.

对你确信自己会乐意遵守的事情做出一些设计承诺。通过在一个地方看到你目标的独特组合，写下来作为你的项目目标，你可能会发现其他人错过的游戏设计机会。

Make a handful of design commitments to things that you’re sure you will be happy to keep. By seeing the unique combination of your goals together in one place, written down as your project goals, you might see game design opportunities that others have missed.

综合起来，体验目标和设计目标为我们提供了项目目标

Taken Together, Experience Goals and Design Goals Give Us Our Project Goals

我们的项目目标是对方向的承诺。一旦我们选择了项目目标，我们希望在整个项目过程中都坚持这些目标。所以我们应该谨慎选择它们。

Our project goals are a commitment to a direction. Once we’ve chosen our project goals, we hope to stick to them for the entirety of the project. So we should choose them carefully.

如何将体验目标和设计目标相结合以创建项目目标取决于您。个人体验和设计目标的正确数量取决于您的团队、项目的持续时间及其背景——例如，它是商业游戏还是个人项目。在我的 USC 游戏课程中，我我的学生指定一到两个体验目标，以及几个（通常不超过三到四个）设计目标。

It’s up to you to decide how you’ll mix-and-match experience goals and design goals to create your project goals. The right number of individual experience and design goals will depend on your team, your project’s duration, and its context—for example, whether it’s a commercial game or a personal project. In my USC Games classes, I get my students to specify one or two experience goals, and a few (usually no more than three or four) design goals.

我们偶尔会在开发过程中抛弃项目目标，以应对我们所发现的问题，并在预生产结束时再次检查项目目标，看看是否需要修改。但如果我们不断改变项目目标，我们很可能只是在原地打转。通过仔细选择我们的体验目标和设计目标，我们可以为接下来的工作指明方向。这就像选择朝着远处的灯塔航行；如果我们始终能看到灯塔，我们就能知道自己在哪里，永远不会迷路。

We occasionally jettison a project goal partway through development, in response to a discovery that we’ve made, and we will check in on our project goals again toward the end of preproduction to see if they need revision. But if we keep changing our minds about what our project goals are, we’re likely just to spin in circles. By carefully choosing our experience goals and design goals, we give ourselves a clear direction for the work that’s coming next. It’s like choosing to navigate toward a lighthouse in the distance; if we keep the lighthouse in sight, we can always work out where we are and will never get lost.

曲目和成长

Repertoire and Growth

当我们制作游戏时，我们不应该只考虑我们想做什么，还应该考虑我们能做什么：我们能用我们拥有的技能创造什么。这并不是说我们不应该鞭策自己，不应该雄心勃勃。

When we’re making a game, we shouldn’t just consider what we want to make, we should also factor in what we can make: what we’re able to build with the skills we have. That’s not to say we shouldn’t push ourselves and be ambitious.

许多创作团体都有一套剧目：一套具有特定风格的作品，他们知道如何巧妙地创作或表演。例如，芝加哥莎士比亚剧团表演威廉·莎士比亚的戏剧，但采用现代背景和现代服饰。

Many creative groups have a repertoire: a body of work, in a particular style, that they know how to create skillfully or to perform well. For example, the Chicago Shakespeare Company performs the plays of William Shakespeare, but does so in modern settings and in modern dress.

2010 年，多产的苏格兰游戏工作室 Denki 的游戏设计师 Gary Penn 向我表示，游戏设计师和游戏开发工作室也有自己的作品，但我们通常不会用这些术语来谈论它们。例如，顽皮狗的作品由角色动作游戏组成，《古惑狼》、《杰克系列》、《神秘海域》和《最后生还者》有着共同的游戏机制和叙事主题，尽管这些游戏系列在其他方面有很大不同。

The game designer Gary Penn, of the prolific Scottish game studio Denki, suggested to me in 2010 that game designers and game development studios also have repertoires, but that we often don’t talk about them in these terms. For example, Naughty Dog’s repertoire is made up of character-action games, and there are common game-mechanical and narrative themes uniting Crash Bandicoot, the Jak series, Uncharted, and The Last of Us, even though those game series are wildly different in other ways.

曲目很重要，因为创作艺术很难，而制作电子游戏更是难上加难。在 2010 年的 GDC Microtalk 上，Gary Penn 说道：“不要去想、谈论或写作。动手做。表演。视觉化。制作原型……开发就像流沙。不要追求第一次就完美无缺……机会总是青睐有准备的头脑。预料到麻烦。排练。探索。获得观点。做出明智的选择。像音乐家和演员一样，去构建曲目。曲目是应用肌肉——经过练习并可重复使用。” ⁵运作良好的游戏开发工作室既会发挥他们的优势，使用他们的曲目——他们已经知道如何去做——也会从每个项目中学习新的东西，在这个过程中成长。虽然《古惑狼》和《最后生还者 第二部》有着共同的 DNA，但顽皮狗在制作每个系列时都学到了很多东西，以至于每个系列都标志着一次进化的飞跃。

Repertoire is important because making art is hard, and making videogames is exceptionally hard. In his 2010 GDC Microtalk, Gary Penn said, “Don’t think, talk, or write about it. Do it. Play-act. Visualize. Prototype.… Development is quicksand. Don’t aim for perfect first time.… Chance favors the prepared mind. Expect trouble. Rehearse. Explore. Get perspective. Make informed choices. Do to build repertoire, like musicians and actors. Repertoire is applied muscle—the practiced and reusable.”⁵ A game development studio that is working well will both play to their strengths, using their repertoire—what they already know how to do—and learn new things with each project, growing in the process. While Crash Bandicoot and The Last of Us Part II share common DNA, Naughty Dog learned so much in making each series that every one marked an evolutionary leap forward.

在我们的游戏开发团队中，我们应该问自己：我们的能力是什么？我们想要如何发展？我们已经擅长什么？我们想要做什么？学习或改进什么？我们想尝试什么？我们可能想尝试一种新的游戏类型或新的游戏机制。我们可能想尝试一种新的叙事类型或新的故事风格。我们可能想尝试新的工具、新的硬件或软件、新的受众群体或新的盈利计划。

On our game development teams, we should ask ourselves: What is our repertoire, and how do we want to grow? What are we already good at, and what do we want to learn or improve upon? What do we want to try? We might want to work in a new game genre or with new game mechanics. We might want to try a new narrative genre, or a new story style. We might want to try new tools, new hardware or software, a new audience demographic or a new monetization plan.

这里最简单的结论是：学会走路之前不要试图跑步。当我们选择成长领域时，我们可以努力在我们已经知道如何做的事情和我们将要推动自己的领域之间找到平衡。通过找到平衡，我们可以冒险，用新的游戏风格、机制和故事来让自己兴奋，同时确保我们不会让自己面临太多风险。

The simplest takeaway here is: don’t try to run before you can walk. As we choose areas for growth, we can work to find a balance between what we already know how to do, and the areas in which we will push ourselves. By finding balance, we can take risks and excite ourselves with new game styles, mechanics, and stories, while making sure that we don’t expose ourselves to too much risk.

考虑我们游戏的潜在受众

Considering the Possible Audience for Our Game

无论你正在制作什么类型的游戏，考虑最终会玩你的游戏的受众几乎肯定会帮助你设计它。大多数游戏设计师都可以从花一些时间思考如何找到想要玩他们游戏的受众并与之沟通中受益。当我们制定项目目标时，正是考虑我们游戏受众的最佳时机。

Whatever kind of game you’re making, thinking about the audience of people who will eventually play your game will almost certainly help you to design it. And most game designers can benefit from spending some time thinking about how they will find and communicate with an audience that would like to play their games. The time when we lay out our project goals is the perfect moment to give some thought to the audience for our game.

你可以通过一个非常简单的练习来做到这一点，只需在项目目标末尾写几个字，完成句子：“我们游戏的潜在受众是...... ”一些示例可能是：

You can do this with a very simple exercise, by writing just a few words at the end of your project goals, completing the sentence: “The possible audience for our game is …” Some examples might be:

• “我们游戏的潜在受众是任何喜欢在地铁上用手机玩游戏的人，以及喜欢在社交媒体上观看有趣视频的人。”
• “The possible audience for our game is anyone who likes playing games on their phone while standing on the subway, and who likes watching funny videos on social media.”
• “我们游戏的潜在受众是热爱 3D‘魂系列’动作游戏和 2D‘银河战士恶魔城’游戏的核心玩家，并且会喜欢这两种游戏类型的混合。”
• “The possible audience for our game is core gamers who love 3D ‘Soulslike’ action games and 2D ‘Metroidvanias,’ and would enjoy a combination of the genres.”
• “我们游戏的潜在受众是喜欢数独和简·奥斯汀小说的人。”
• “The possible audience for our game is made up of people who enjoy Sudoku and the novels of Jane Austen.”
• “我们游戏的潜在受众是那些喜欢园艺并且年龄在八十岁以上的人。”
• “The possible audience for our game is people who enjoy gardening and are aged eighty years of age and older.”

通过从喜欢游戏的人的角度来审视你的游戏，你可能会得到新的设计想法，从而引导你走向有趣且富有成效的方向。也许你会意识到你对游戏的思考方式缺少了一些东西，或者你正在考虑的东西并不那么合适。

By looking at your game through the lens of the people who would enjoy it, you might get new design ideas that lead you in interesting and productive directions. Perhaps you’ll realize that something is missing from the way you were thinking about your game, or that something you were considering isn’t such a good fit after all.

在商业世界中，与可能需要某种产品的人建立联系的过程称为营销。我在职业生涯早期就意识到，考虑我们的受众并做好营销是制作游戏的重要组成部分。现在，作为一名游戏设计师，你可以也应该考虑你的受众，而不必受制于市场。但即使你要免费赠送你的游戏，我也希望你希望人们看到你的作品。如果你是一个计划以制作游戏为生的人，那么你——或者你的同事——能够弄清楚这一点至关重要如何与那些可能给你钱让你玩你的游戏的人建立联系。

In the business world, the process of connecting with people who might want a product is called marketing. I realized early in my career that considering our audience and having good marketing is an important part of making games. Now, as a game designer you can and should think about your audience without necessarily being beholden to a market. But even if you’re going to give your game away for free, I hope that you would like people to see your work. If you are someone who plans to make their living from making games, then it’s crucial that you—or someone you work with—can figure out how you’re going to connect with people who might give you money for the opportunity to play your game.

我认为我们不需要玩世不恭地进行营销。营销可以帮助我们接触那些可能因为先入为主的观念而根本不会考虑玩某个游戏的人。正如马克·塞尼告诉我的那样，“我认为，当更多的受众（他们可能对游戏宣传不感兴趣）接触并爱上游戏时，我们的成功最为显著。”创意营销人员可以通过展示我们的游戏值得他们喜爱的地方来帮助我们接触受众。

I don’t think that we need to approach marketing cynically. Marketing can help us reach people who wouldn’t even consider playing a certain game, perhaps because of their preconceptions. As Mark Cerny told me, “I think we succeed most dramatically when a larger audience—that wouldn’t be interested in the game pitch—comes into contact with and falls in love with the game.” Creative marketers can help us to reach audiences by showing what there is for them to love about our game.

这些“潜在受众”描述是定位声明的一种简单形式，是营销专业人士使用的工具，我从同事 Jim Huntley 那里学到了这一点。Jim 是一名营销和品牌管理顾问，在多个行业拥有超过 20 年的经验，其中包括在游戏发行商 THQ 工作 5 年。他告诉我，创意阶段的最后阶段是制定定位声明的好时机，定位声明简要描述可能构成您的受众的群体、他们的喜好或需求，以及您希望他们如何看待您的游戏，也许是从品牌形象的角度。您可以在网上找到有关创建定位声明的信息，或者联系营销专业人士。

These “possible audience” descriptions are a simple form of positioning statement, a tool used by marketing professionals which I learned about from my colleague Jim Huntley. Jim is a marketing and brand management consultant with over twenty years of experience across multiple industries, including five years at game publisher THQ. He told me that the end of ideation is a good time to develop a positioning statement, which briefly describes a group that could make up your audience, their likes or needs, and how you want them to perceive your game, maybe in terms of its brand identity. You can find information online about creating a positioning statement, or reach out to a marketing professional.

您还可以从社区的角度考虑游戏的受众：寻找、交流并积极培养游戏社区。社区管理如今已成为游戏行业中一个成熟且备受尊重的部门。它处于营销、社交媒体、在线审核和游戏开发的交汇处。随着游戏越来越不像盒装产品，而越来越像拥有活跃、参与度高的社区的实时服务，社区经理的作用变得越来越重要，对于玩家来说，社区经理的作用已经模糊了他们对游戏本身的体验。

You can also think about the audience for your game in terms of community: finding, communicating with, and positively cultivating a community around your game. Community management is now a mature and well-respected part of the game industry. It exists at the intersection of marketing, social media, online moderation, and game development. As games become less like boxed products and more like live services with an active, engaged community, the role of community managers becomes ever more important, and for players blurs into their experience of the game itself.

您可以使用人口统计学、心理统计学和所谓的市场规模来详细了解游戏的潜在受众。您可以在本书的网站 playfulproductionprocess.com 上阅读这些内容。在设想游戏受众时，考虑可比性也很有用 — “这将吸引喜欢（某个游戏、电影、电视节目、书籍或漫画）的人。”许多有创造力的人在研究新作品时会考虑现有技术。

You can learn more about the possible audience for your game using demographics, psychographics, and something called market sizing. You can read about these on this book’s website, playfulproductionprocess.com. It’s also useful to consider comparables when imagining audiences for your game—“This will appeal to people who like (a certain game, movie, TV show, book, or comic).” Many creative people do this by considering prior art when they’re doing research for a new piece of work.

在构思结束时，有时只需想象游戏的潜在受众就足够了。真正找到并与受众交谈将在之后进行。在整个开发过程中，每次完成“我们游戏的潜在受众是…… ”这句话时，您就会更了解您的游戏以及您的游戏测试者喜欢它的原因，并且练习会对您来说更轻松。

At the end of ideation, it’s sometimes enough just to imagine the potential audience for your game. Actually finding and talking with your audience will come later. Each time throughout development you complete the sentence “The possible audience for our game is …” you will know more about your game and what your playtesters enjoyed about it, and the exercise will flow more easily for you.

有很多书籍介绍了在游戏开发过程中需要同时进行的所有营销工作，以便成功推出游戏。Joel Dreskin 的《独立游戏营销实用指南》和Peter Zackariasson 和 Mikolaj Dymek 合著的《视频游戏营销：学生教科书》是两本很好的参考书。

There are books about all the marketing work that needs to be done in parallel with a game’s development, in order to launch a game successfully. Joel Dreskin’s A Practical Guide to Indie Game Marketing and Video Game Marketing: A Student Textbook by Peter Zackariasson and Mikolaj Dymek are two good references.

成为专业游戏平台的开发者

Becoming a Developer for a Specialized Game Platform

如果您的设计目标之一是为索尼、微软或任天堂等平台持有者制造的主机开发游戏，或者要在 Apple 生态系统的移动平台上发布游戏，那么您必须在开发过程开始时申请成为该平台的开发者。开发主机游戏通常需要特殊的开发工具包（一种可以连接到计算机进行开发和调试的主机硬件版本），因此开发者与平台持有者之间的关系始于开发者申请为该平台开发并获得所需的“开发工具包”时。

If one of your design goals is to create a game for a console made by a platform holder like Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo, or which is to be released on a mobile platform in the Apple ecosystem, then you must apply to become a developer for that platform toward the beginning of your development process. Developing a console game usually requires a special development kit—a version of the console hardware that can be connected to a computer for development and debugging purposes—so the relationship between a developer and a platform holder begins when the developer applies to develop for the platform and to receive the “dev kits” they need.

构思阶段结束后是开始规划的好时机，你应该意识到获得批准的过程可能漫长而复杂。各个平台的细节各不相同，你应该做大量研究，以确切了解你需要做些什么才能获得平台开发者的批准。平台持有者已经努力使申请流程变得友好，但要尽早开始，甚至比你认为需要的更早开始。

The end of ideation is a good time to start planning for this, and you should be aware that the process of getting approved can be long and complex. The details vary from platform to platform, and you should do plenty of research to find out exactly what you need to do to get approved as a developer for your platform. The platform holders have worked hard to make the application process friendly, but start early, and start even earlier than you think you need to.

为了获得开发者的批准，您需要提交要发布的游戏的提案以及一些有关您团队的信息。一旦获得批准，您将可以访问为该平台开发游戏所需的资源，包括开发工具包、技术文档以及有关发布批准和发布流程的信息。我们将在第 34 章中回到专业游戏平台的主题。利用您从平台持有者那里学到的关于为其硬件开发的知识，将其融入本书中描述的流程中，这样您就可以在您梦想的平台上发布您的游戏了。

In order to be approved as a developer, you submit a proposal for the game you want to release, along with some information about your team. Once you’ve been approved, you will gain access to the resources you need to develop for the platform, including development kits, technical documentation, and information about the release approval and publishing process. We’ll return to the subject of specialized game platforms in chapter 34. Use what you learn from the platform holder about developing for their hardware, fold it into the processes described in this book, and you should be on track for releasing your game on the platform of your dreams.

关于制定项目目标的建议

Advice about Forming Your Project Goals

仔细考虑你的项目目标，并尝试遵循你从制作原型中学到的东西。不要忽视成功的原型！遵循原型中玩家积极反应的某些东西通常是件好事，即使它会让你偏离最初的想法。你不会放弃那些想法：你制作的原型得到了良好的反应，即使你偶然发现了它，新的方向也是你真实的一部分。

Think carefully about your project goals and try to follow what you learned from making your prototypes. Don’t ignore a successful prototype! It’s often good to follow something in a prototype that players reacted to in a positive way, even if it leads you away from your original ideas. You’re not selling out on those ideas: you made the prototype that got a good reaction, and even if you stumbled upon it, the new direction is an authentic part of you.

如果您在选择项目目标时遇到困难，请回顾您最初的头脑风暴和研究。一旦您构建了一些原型，一个想法的最初火花通常会有所不同。写一份项目目标的草稿，然后向您的团队和老板、您的同事和朋友或您的教授和同学征求反馈。至少一两次迭代您的项目目标是一种很好的方式，可以让您对想要构建的游戏有一个非常清晰的高概念视图。

Go back to your initial brainstorms and research if you’re having a hard time choosing your project goals. The first sparks of an idea often look different once you’ve built some prototypes. Write a rough draft of your project goals, and then ask for feedback on them from your team and bosses, your peers and friends, or your professor and classmates. Iterating on your project goals at least once or twice is a great way of arriving at a very clear high-concept view of the game you want to build.

在设定项目目标时，你可能需要与业务合作伙伴合作。游戏设计师很少能完全独立，除非他们自筹资金或加入学生团队。发挥你最好的协作技能，找到项目让出钱的人感到兴奋的目标，也让你感到兴奋的目标。

You may well have to collaborate with business partners when setting your project goals. Game designers rarely have complete independence unless they’re self-financed or on a student team. Bring your best collaborative skills to the table to find project goals that the people putting up the money can be excited about, and that you’re excited about too.

设定项目目标是游戏团队领导层的重要职责。希望每个人都能为游戏项目目标做出贡献，但团队领导层的职责是帮助确定在空想和研究中哪些是有趣的，将看似相互冲突的想法综合成每个人都能支持的新想法，并帮助确定原型中哪些是有效的。领导层的职责还包括帮助团队找到方法克服实现项目目标过程中的挑战，并专注于他们设定的创意方向。正如 Mark Cerny 提醒我的那样：“一位伟大的创意总监（或游戏总监）会不断挑战团队，推动他们朝着那个特殊的方向前进。”

Setting the goals for a project is an important responsibility of a game team’s leadership. Hopefully everyone will have a voice in contributing to the game’s project goals, but it’s the role of the team’s leadership to help identify what’s interesting in the blue sky thinking and research, to synthesize seemingly conflicting ideas into new ideas that everyone can get behind, and to help identify what’s working in the prototypes. It’s also leadership’s role to help the team find a way through the challenges along the path to realizing the project goals and to stay focused on the creative direction they set. As Mark Cerny reminded me: “A great creative director (or game director) will constantly challenge the team, pushing them in that special direction.”

您的项目目标将指导您完成整个项目，但不要想太多。我们会在预生产结束时再次检查它们，看看是否需要修改。即使您已经做出了决定，您也可以保持方法的灵活性。我们几乎完成了项目的构思阶段，我们将在下一章中总结。

Your project goals will guide you throughout your project, but don’t overthink them. We’ll check in on them again at the end of preproduction, to see if they need revision. Even when you’ve committed to a decision, you can remain flexible in your approach. We’re almost done with the ideation phase of our project, and we’ll wrap things up in the next chapter.

2. 1 . Fullerton，游戏设计工作室，第 2 版，10。

3. 1.  Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, 2nd ed., 10.

4. 2. Fullerton，游戏设计工作室，第 4 版，252。

5. 2.  Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, 4th ed., 252.

6. 3. “体验”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience。

7. 3.  “Experience,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience.

8. 4. Huizinga，《游戏人》；Carse，《有限游戏与无限游戏》。

9. 4.  Huizinga, Homo Ludens; Carse, Finite and Infinite Games.

10. 5. Gary Penn，GDC Microtalks 2010：十位演讲者、200 张幻灯片、无限创意！，https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012271/GDC-Microtalks-2010-Ten-Speakers，17 :01。

11. 5.  Gary Penn, GDC Microtalks 2010: Ten Speakers, 200 Slides, Limitless Ideas!, https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012271/GDC-Microtalks-2010-Ten-Speakers, 17:01.

构思阶段应该持续多长时间？

How Long Should the Ideation Phase Last?

在我工作的工作室里，我们没有正式的构思阶段，但在顽皮狗，我们肯定有一个非正式的构思阶段，通常是在我们夏末发布上一款游戏和一月份冬歇期回来之间的三到四个月内。

We didn’t have a formal ideation phase at the studios I worked at, but we certainly had an informal ideation phase at Naughty Dog, usually in the three or four months between shipping our previous game in late summer and getting back from the winter break in January.

这让我们有机会在相对低压力的氛围中进行一些研发。各个领域的人们都有时间自由发挥他们感兴趣的想法，这也是尝试新工具和新技术的好时机。在发布游戏时，你经常会得到很多好主意，这些主意当时可能没有用，但对你的下一款游戏来说可能很有用。下一款游戏的总监将开始制定一些核心想法，并迅速吸引团队中的其他人参与这项工作。

This gave us the chance to do some R&D (research and development) in a relatively low-pressure atmosphere. People across every discipline had time to play around freely with ideas they were excited about, and it was a good time to try new tools and techniques. You often get a lot of good ideas as you’re shipping a game that aren’t useful right then but could be great for your next game. The next game’s directors would begin to work up some core ideas and would quickly draw other people from around the team into that work.

《神秘海域 2》和《神秘海域 3》都是为期两年的项目，我估计我们在整个项目时间线中花了大约 15% 的时间处于构思阶段。在南加州大学的课堂上，我让学生在构思上花费的时间也差不多。你的项目需要多少构思时间才合适取决于你自己。如果你有充裕的时间，那么花更长的时间进行构思也许是件好事，尤其是当你想做一些真正具有创新性的事情时。

Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 were two-year projects, and I estimate we spent about 15 percent of their total project timelines in a phase that felt like ideation. In my classes at USC, I have my students spend around the same amount of time in ideation. How much ideation time is right for your project will depend on you. If you have the luxury of time, then perhaps spending longer in ideation could be good, especially if you’re trying to do something truly innovative.

不过，我建议你为构思阶段设定一个“时间限制”。给自己一个有限且固定的时间进行构思。不要让它永远飘忽不定。时间限制将帮助你保持专注，并为项目的开始提供能量。我将在第 11 章中更多地讨论时间限制。

I would recommend that you “timebox” your ideation phase, though. Give yourself a limited and fixed amount of time for ideation. Don’t let it drift on forever. The time limit will help you stay focused and will give an energetic boost to the beginning of the project. I’ll talk more about timeboxing in chapter 11.

关于原型设计的一些最终建议

Some Final Advice about Prototyping

制作尽可能多的原型，尽可能广泛、深入、快速和彻底地探索您的想法，使用实体原型、玩具模拟和快速、专注的数字原型制作。通过制作、构建、创造和持续不断的游戏测试，从尽可能多的不同角度探索您头脑风暴的想法。

Make as many prototypes as you can, and explore your ideas as widely, as deeply, as quickly, and as radically as you can, with physical prototypes, playacting with toys, and fast, focused digital prototyping. Explore the ideas that you brainstorm up from as many different angles as you can, by making, building, creating, and constant, constant playtesting.

如果你刚刚开始游戏设计实践并希望获得更多指导，你可以在 Tracy Fullerton 的书《游戏设计工作室》^中了解有关纸质原型和数字原型的更多信息。1在下一节“预生产”中，我将详细介绍如何使用在构思阶段制作的物理原型和数字原型。

If you’re just setting out in your game design practice and want more instruction, you can learn a lot more about paper prototyping and digital prototyping in Tracy Fullerton’s book Game Design Workshop.¹ I’ll talk more about how we can use the physical and digital prototypes we make during the ideation phase in the next section, on preproduction.

创意交付成果摘要

A Summary of the Ideation Deliverables

图 8.1简要概括了游戏项目构思阶段应交付的成果，以帮助您保持正轨。

Figure 8.1 shows a short summary of the deliverables due throughout the ideation phase of a game project, to help you to stay on track.

2. 1 . Fullerton，游戏设计工作室，第 4 版。

3. 1.  Fullerton, Game Design Workshop, 4th ed.

装配线和瀑布

The Assembly Line and Waterfall

亨利·福特 (Henry Ford) 借鉴了兰塞姆·伊莱·奥兹 (Ransom Eli Olds)（奥兹莫比尔汽车公司创始人）的理念，发明了移动装配线（有时称为生产线），彻底改变了汽车的工业生产方式。汽车的设计由工程师制定，每辆汽车都是在装配线上分阶段制造的，从底盘开始，然后加上发动机、油箱、车轮、车身以及制造汽车所需的一切。

Building on the ideas of Ransom Eli Olds (of Oldsmobile fame), Henry Ford revolutionized the industrial production of the automobile by inventing the moving assembly line (sometimes called a production line). A plan for a car is devised by engineers, and each car is built on the assembly line in stages, starting with the chassis and then adding an engine, fuel tank, wheels, bodywork, and everything else needed to make the car complete.

随着时间的推移，流水线的理念在计算机科学领域得到了体现，即“瀑布模型”，这是 20 世纪 50 年代中期出现的一种软件设计方法（尽管“瀑布”一词直到 20 世纪 70 年代才出现）。瀑布背后的理念与流水线的理念基本相同：设计师和工程师仔细思考，然后为将要构建的软件编写一份全面的规范（“spec”）。然后，他们制定实施该规范的计划，并将这两份文件传递给软件工程师团队，他们分阶段、逐个部分地严格按照给出的说明创建最终程序。

Over time, the idea of the assembly line found expression in the world of computer science with the “waterfall model,” an approach to software design that appeared in the mid-1950s (although the term waterfall didn’t appear until the 1970s). The idea behind waterfall is essentially the same as that of an assembly line: designers and engineers think carefully and then write a comprehensive specification (“spec”) for the software that will be built. They then create a plan for implementing the spec, and both documents are passed to a team of software engineers who create the finished program in stages, piece by piece, carefully following the instructions they’ve been given.

从 20 世纪 80 年代末开始，负责游戏项目管理的人们开始转向这种瀑布式开发方法，这种方法在商业软件开发领域被广泛使用，因为他们迫切希望在时间、人力和资金方面控制好项目。20 世纪 80 年代游戏界的“卧室开发者”，即当时的独立游戏开发者，通常非常年轻，忙于发明一种艺术形式。他们自由、直观地工作，但往往不正常，他们通过持续的加班来强行完成项目，连续几个月不休息，每天醒着的时候都在工作。有时项目可以按时高质量完成——但通常项目会严重超出时间和预算，或者根本无法完成。在许多情况下，这些项目严重损害了创造者的身心健康。

Beginning in the late 1980s, people tasked with the project management of games looked toward these waterfall development methods, which were widely used in the world of business software development, as they desperately sought to bring their projects under control in terms of time, person-power, and money. The “bedroom developers” of the 1980s game scene, the indie game developers of their day, were often very young and were busy inventing an art form. They worked freely, intuitively, but often dysfunctionally, brute-forcing their projects to completion with sustained crunches, working every waking hour for months on end without a day off. Sometimes the projects came in on time and to high quality—and very often they ran wildly over time and budget, or never reached completion at all. In many cases, the projects burned their creators badly, shattering their mental and physical health.

因此，也许这并不奇怪，当时的游戏制作人开始梦想全面的游戏设计文档，宏大的整体规范将预先定义所有内容，随时可以转化为资产和任务列表，以便可以像汽车或洗衣机一样在装配线上创建游戏，在时间、金钱和所需的人数方面是可预测的。

So perhaps it’s not surprising that the game producers of the day started to dream about comprehensive game design documents, grand monolithic specifications that would define everything up front, ready to be turned into lists of assets and tasks, so that a game could be created on an assembly line like a car or a washing machine, predictable in terms of the time, money, and number of people needed.

好梦。但在大多数电子游戏案例中，瀑布式开发并不奏效，至少在游戏创作的早期阶段是如此。当然，可预测的预算和时间表对于项目的整个制作阶段非常重要，但瀑布式开发方法中包含的良好规划意图通常会被发现您正在设计的游戏的优点的过程中的不确定性所劫持。

Nice dream. But in most videogame cases, waterfall just doesn’t work, at least not for the early stages of game creation. Of course, predictable budgets and schedules are very important for the full production phase of a project, but the good planning intentions contained in a waterfall approach are often hijacked by the uncertainties of the process of discovering what’s good about the game that you’re trying to design.

创造新事物

Making Something New

如果你正在以可靠的模式制作游戏，并且已经确定了行之有效的游戏机制，那么瀑布方法的元素可能会奏效。但是当你在努力做新事情时该怎么办？你还不确定游戏的所有部分如何组合在一起——哪些部分会很棒，需要放大，哪些部分效果不佳，需要背景化或从游戏中完全移除？

If you’re making a game in a reliable pattern, with well-established game mechanics that you already know work well, then elements of the waterfall approach could work. But what about when you’re struggling to do something new? Something where you’re not yet sure how all the pieces of your game fit together—which parts will prove to be great and need amplifying, and which parts don’t work so well and need backgrounding or removing from the game altogether?

我认为制作游戏的正确方法与画家创作绘画的方法有很多相似之处。我们先画草图，然后扩展我们最初的想法，然后埋头读书、做研究，最后我们就可以拿起画布，用炭笔画草图了。然后我们开始在草图上涂上油彩来创作一幅完成的画作。有时，当我们画到一半的时候，它就会有自己的生命，并引导我们走向我们未曾预料到的新方向。

It’s my belief that the right way to make games has a lot in common with the way a painter makes a painting. We do preliminary sketches, we expand our original ideas, we stick our noses in books and do research, and eventually we’re ready to grab a canvas and draw sketches in charcoal. We then start to use oil paint over the sketches to create a finished painting. Sometimes, when we’re halfway through the painting, it takes on a life of its own and leads us in new directions that we hadn’t anticipated.

我们已经在构思部分中研究了电子游戏创作的研究和草图部分。现在是时候看看开发过程了，除了原型的炭笔草图之外，在游戏项目的预生产阶段，使用迭代设计流程用油画充实原型。

We already looked at the research and sketching parts of the creation of a videogame in our section on ideation. Now it’s time to take a look at the process of developing beyond the charcoal sketches of our prototypes, fleshing them out with oil paint during the preproduction phase of a game project, using an iterative design process.

前期制作期间的规划

Planning during Preproduction

良好的规划有助于许多（或许是大多数）创意活动取得成功。但游戏设计由无数决策组成，涉及大量资产、代码片段和其他活动部件。我们不可能一一列出并规划好所有可能发生的情况。良好的规划并不一定意味着更多的规划。游戏设计师如何才能做好足够的规划，让他们能够理解游戏设计，并制定切实可行的项目计划，从而获得成功？

Good planning contributes to success in many—maybe most—acts of creativity. But a game’s design is made up of an uncountable number of decisions, involving a vast number of assets, pieces of code, and other moving parts. We couldn’t possibly list them all and plan for every contingency. Good planning doesn’t necessarily equate with more planning. How can game designers do just enough planning to set themselves up for success with a game design that they understand, and a project plan that is realistic and realizable?

预生产是项目的一个阶段，在这个阶段，我们会规划游戏的设计和制作——游戏将会是什么样的，以及我们计划如何管理项目。但规划可能是一个陷阱，它会浪费我们宝贵的开发时间，让我们陷入思考和讨论，犹豫不决，反复改变主意。我们陷入了想象事情的细节中，后来才发现我们并不需要，我们完全忽略了超出我们想象但最终被证明是至关重要的东西。

Preproduction is the phase of the project when we plan our game’s design and production—what the game is going to be and how we plan to manage the project. But planning can be a trap, sucking away our valuable development time as we ponder and discuss, as we hesitate to commit and repeatedly change our minds. We get caught up in imagining details of things that we’ll later discover we don’t need, and we completely overlook things that are beyond our imagining but will prove to be essential.

在《我在建筑学校学到的 101 件事》这本深受游戏设计师喜爱的书中，作者兼建筑师 Matthew Frederick 说道：

In 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, a book beloved by game designers, the author and architect Matthew Frederick says:

设计过程通常是结构化和有条不紊的，但它不是一个机械的过程。机械过程有预先确定的结果，但创造性过程力求创造一些以前不存在的东西。真正的创造性意味着你不知道自己要去哪里，即使你负责引导这个过程。这需要与传统的授权控制不同的东西；松散的天鹅绒系绳更有可能有所帮助^。1

The design process is often structured and methodical, but it is not a mechanical process. Mechanical processes have predetermined outcomes, but the creative process strives to produce something that has not existed before. Being genuinely creative means that you don’t know where you are going, even though you are responsible for shepherding the process. This requires something different from conventional, authorization control; a loose velvet tether is more likely to help.¹

这是非常好的建议；它非常符合整本书的精神，而且在我们谈论规划时非常有用。我们需要规划，但游戏设计师如何在过多的规划和不足的规划之间找到平衡？我在顽皮狗从我的朋友兼导师马克·塞尼那里得到了这个问题的答案。

This is great advice; it’s very much in the spirit of this whole book, and it’s highly informative when we’re talking about planning. We need to plan, but how can game designers find a balance between too much planning and not enough? I got the answer to this question at Naughty Dog from my friend and mentor Mark Cerny.

马克·塞尼和方法

Mark Cerny and Method

Mark Cerny 是一名游戏设计师、开发者和高管，他的职业生涯始于 20 世纪 80 年代初，17 岁时加入 Atari。受到迷你高尔夫、赛车游戏和 MC Escher 的启发，Mark 设计并共同编写了极具创新性的街机游戏《Marble Madness》。接下来，他在日本世嘉公司工作，为世嘉 Master System 和世嘉 Genesis 开发游戏，之后回到美国创立世嘉技术学院，并成为《刺猬索尼克 2》的项目负责人。后来，他成为环球互动工作室的副总裁，然后担任总裁。

Mark Cerny is a game designer, developer, and executive who began his career in the early 1980s, joining Atari at the age of seventeen. Inspired by miniature golf, racing games, and M. C. Escher, Mark designed and coprogrammed the wildly innovative arcade game Marble Madness. Next he worked at Sega in Japan, creating games for the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis, before returning to the United States to found the Sega Technical Institute and become project leader on Sonic the Hedgehog 2. He later became vice president and then president of Universal Interactive Studios.

在 Universal Interactive，马克认识了两位年轻的游戏开发者，分别是 Jason Rubin 和 Andy Gavin。Jason 和 Andy 在高中时就创办了一家游戏工作室，他们将其命名为 JAM Games（代表“Jason and Andy Magic”的意思），但不久之后，他们就将工作室改名为顽皮狗。

At Universal Interactive, Mark met two young game developers called Jason Rubin and Andy Gavin. Jason and Andy had founded a game studio while still in high school—they called it JAM Games (for “Jason and Andy Magic”)—but it wouldn’t be long before they renamed themselves Naughty Dog.

马克认可杰森和安迪的才华——他们已经创作了相当多的成功数字游戏，包括《Keef the Thief》和《Rings of Power》。顽皮狗与马克合作创作了他们的第一款国际热门游戏《Crash Bandicoot》，马克将健康的开发流程带入了顽皮狗、Insomniac Games 和许多其他团队，并带来了高质量的游戏。

Mark recognized Jason and Andy’s talent—they had already created a respectable number of successful digital games, including Keef the Thief and Rings of Power. Naughty Dog collaborated with Mark to create their first international smash hit, Crash Bandicoot, and Mark brought healthy development processes resulting in high-quality games to his future work with Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and many other teams.

作为一名游戏高管，马克一直亲力亲为，帮助设计游戏关卡和机制，并指导游戏开发过程，这在某种程度上与游戏高管不同。他在《神秘海域》系列的开发过程中给予了我很大的帮助。马克现在是索尼互动娱乐的高级顾问，曾担任 PlayStation 4 和 PlayStation 5 的首席架构师。

Somewhat unusually for a game executive, Mark has remained hands-on as a developer, helping to create levels and mechanics for games as well as guiding their development process, and he helped me with much of my work on the Uncharted series. Mark now works as a senior consultant for Sony Interactive Entertainment and was the lead architect of the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5.

2002 年，在拉斯维加斯举行的 DICE 峰会上，马克·塞尼发表了一次具有历史意义的演讲，开启了游戏行业的一场悄无声息的革命。这场演讲的标题很简单，叫做“方法”，它是游戏设计智慧、良好实践、恰当批评和规划建议的源泉。2^它清楚地列出了以更好的方式制作出色游戏的流程。每个游戏开发者和游戏学生都应该至少看一次这个演讲。

In 2002, at the D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas, Mark Cerny gave a history-making talk that began a quiet revolution in the games industry. Simply titled “Method,” the talk is a wellspring of game design wisdom, good practice, apt criticism, and planning advice.² It clearly lays out a process for making great games in a better way. Every game developer and game student should watch this talk at least once.

Method 是 Mark 和他的同事、游戏设计师兼教育家 Michael “MJ” John 在与游戏工作室合作时观察到的最佳工作实践后整理出来的一种游戏制作方法。Method 提出的一些建议非常激进，甚至可以说是异端邪说，当 Mark 断言预生产不能按计划进行，否则将无法成功时，您可以听到礼堂里游戏总监和商业领袖的惊叹声、笑声和掌声。

Method is an approach to making games that Mark and his colleague the game designer and educator Michael “MJ” John had codified as they observed best working practices in their collaborations with game studios. Several of the things proposed by Method were radical, even heretical, and you can hear the gasps, laughter, and applause from the game directors and business leaders in the auditorium as Mark asserts that preproduction can’t be scheduled, or it won’t work.

值得注意的是，马克在 2002 年发表了方法论演讲，就在敏捷联盟发布“软件开发敏捷宣言”的一年后。3^方法论和敏捷之间有许多哲学上的对应关系，因为它们都建议采用“松散但结构化”的方法来制作出色的软件。因此，它们很容易配对，我们将在后面的章节中看到。

It’s interesting to note that Mark gave the Method talk in 2002, just a year after the Agile Alliance published their “Agile Manifesto for Software Development.”³ There are many philosophical correspondences between Method and Agile, in that they both recommend a “loose but structured” approach to making great software. As such they are easy to pair, as we’ll see in later chapters.

预生产的价值

The Value of Preproduction

我认为前期制作是最重要的项目阶段，Mark Cerny 在他的演讲中说，当一个项目陷入困境时，最常见的原因是前期制作做得不恰当或完全跳过了。“我相信 80% 的游戏开发错误——我并不夸张——都是由预制作中完成或未完成的事情直接导致的。” ⁴ Mark 继续说道，“预制作不需要庞大的团队，但需要你最好的、可能是薪水最高的员工。这个核心团队将决定你的游戏的所有重要方面，并且很可能成为你的制作团队领导者。所以尽早找到最好的人才。” ⁵

I believe that preproduction is the most important project phase, and in his talk Mark Cerny says that when a project gets into trouble, it’s most often because preproduction was done improperly or skipped altogether. “I believe that 80 percent—I’m not exaggerating—of mistakes in game development are a direct result of things that were done, or not done, in preproduction.”⁴ Mark goes on to say, “Preproduction does not require a large team, but it does require your best and probably your highest paid staff. This core team will determine everything that’s important about your game, and most likely become your team leaders in production. So get the best people you can possibly find and get them early.”⁵

我们通过思考，但主要是通过实践，来制定游戏的所有最基本方面。就像构思一样，构建事物有助于我们发展我们的想法。我们将多次回顾方法的哲学和实践，但现在让我们谈谈实际情况：在预制作期间我们要做什么？我们将创建三个关键可交付成果：垂直切片、游戏设计宏和时间表。

We work out all the most essential aspects of the game partly by thinking but mainly by doing. Just as in ideation, it’s building things that helps us to develop our ideas. We’ll come back to the philosophy and practices of Method several times, but now let’s get down to brass tacks: what are we going to do during preproduction? We’re going to create three key deliverables: a vertical slice, a game design macro, and a schedule.

2. 1 . Frederick，《我在建筑学校学到的 101 件事》，81。

3. 1.  Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, 81.

4. 2. Mark Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=QOAW9ioWAvE 。

5. 2.  Mark Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOAW9ioWAvE.

6. 3. Ken Schwaber，“敏捷软件开发宣言”，2001 年，https://agilemanifesto.org/。

7. 3.  Ken Schwaber, “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” 2001, https://agilemanifesto.org/.

8. 4. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，3：40。

9. 4.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 3:40.

10. 5. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，6：26。

11. 5.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 6:26.

核心循环

The Core Loop

许多游戏都是围绕重复模式构建的，正如 Jaime Griesemer 在其著名的“三十秒乐趣”概念中所描述的那样，该概念是Halo系列游戏玩法的基础。在单人游戏Halo中，玩家活动有一个重复的模式，你会一遍又一遍地循环。你进入一个区域，注意敌人和战利品的位置，然后寻找掩护。你瞄准敌人，逐一击败他们，沿着地图四处走动，直到最终到达出口——然后进入一个新区域，再次开始这种基本的玩家活动模式。

Many games are built around a repeating pattern, as described by Jaime Griesemer in his famous concept of the “thirty seconds of fun” underlying the gameplay of the Halo series. In the single-player game of Halo, there’s a repeating pattern of player activities that you cycle through over and over again. You enter an area, notice where the enemies and loot are, and take cover. You take aim at the enemies, defeating them one by one, and work your way around and through the map until you finally reach the exit—only to enter a new area, beginning this basic pattern of player activities again.

但这并不意味着《光环》或其他任何设计精良的游戏都是重复的。在 2011 年接受 Engadget 采访时，Jaime 表示，

However, that doesn’t mean that Halo, or any well-designed game, is repetitious. In an interview with Engadget in 2011, Jaime said,

我说过要利用那三十秒的乐趣在不同的环境中玩游戏，使用不同的武器、不同的车辆，对抗不同的敌人，对抗不同的组合。敌人，有时是与正在互相战斗的敌人对抗。Halo的 30 秒剧情从未重复；任务不断改变着你的背景。¹

I talked about taking that thirty seconds of fun and playing it in different environments, with different weapons, different vehicles, against different enemies, against different combinations of enemies, sometimes against enemies that are fighting each other. No thirty second stretch of Halo is ever repeated; the missions are constantly changing the context on you.¹

游戏设计师经常将此称为游戏的“核心循环”。在这种底层重复模式之上，游戏设计师和玩家之间合作创造出了无穷无尽的变化。设计师呈现了不断变化的游戏元素组合。玩家可以自由地以多种多样的方式接触游戏的每个部分。

Game designers often refer to this as the “core loop” of a game. Built on top of this underlying pattern of repetition is endless variation, appearing through a collaboration between the game’s designers and players. The designers present ever-changing combinations of game elements. Players are free to approach each part of the game in many varied ways.

垂直切片将包括至少一个代表游戏核心循环的部分，并展示我们在玩游戏时大部分时间会拥有的体验类型。

A vertical slice will include at least one section that represents the core loop of the game and shows the type of experience we’ll be having most of the time while we’re playing.

根据游戏风格，核心循环可能是《神秘海域》等角色动作游戏中的“奔跑/跳跃/攀爬”，或城市建设游戏中的“选择类型/选择区域/建造”。它可能有很多即时控制—— 《俄罗斯方块》中的“左移/右移/旋转/放下” ——或者它可能与动作距离较远，如《星际争霸》中的“选择单位/发出命令” 。

Depending on the style of game, this core loop might be “run/jump/climb” in a character-action game like Uncharted, or “choose-type/select-area/build” in a city-building game. It might have a lot of moment-to-moment control—“move-left/move-right/rotate/drop” in Tetris—or it might be at more of a distance from the action, like “select-unit/issue-command” in StarCraft.

我相信你已经意识到，创建这些核心循环的演示需要创建许多不同的游戏机制、输入方法、游戏实体和资产。对于角色动作游戏，我们不仅需要“奔跑/跳跃/攀爬”，还需要一些东西来奔跑、跳跃、攀爬。对于模拟游戏、实时战略游戏或多人在线战斗竞技场，我们需要一些实体来构建、控制和战斗。在叙事游戏中，我们需要一些角色来交谈、一些地方来参观，以及一些事件来发生。要真正了解我们的游戏玩法，我们必须看到一些可能从我们的机制中产生的最有趣的时刻。

As I’m sure you realize, creating a demonstration of these core loops requires the creation of a lot of different game mechanics, input methods, game entities, and assets. For a character-action game, we won’t just need “run/jump/climb,” we’ll need some things to run on, jump over, climb onto. For a simulation game, a real-time strategy game, or a multiplayer online battle arena, we’ll need some entities to build, control, and fight. In a narrative game, we’ll need some characters to talk to, some places to visit, and some events to have happen. To really get a sense of our gameplay, we’ll have to see some of the most interesting moments that can arise from our mechanics.

三个 C

The Three Cs

还有另一种方法可以了解垂直切片如何帮助我们确定游戏设计。它涉及考虑电子游戏的“三个 C”：角色、摄像头和控制。

There’s another way to look at how the vertical slice helps us to figure out our game’s design. It involves a consideration of the “three Cs” of a videogame: character, camera, and control.

控制

Control

控制是玩家与游戏互动的机制，玩家通过做出选择来表达自己的意志。确定游戏的控制方式部分与决定按下哪些按钮、鼠标移动和摇杆手势会导致游戏中的某些动作有关，但远不止这些。

Control is the mechanism by which the player interacts with the game, making choices that express their agency. Determining the controls of a game partly has to do with deciding what button presses, mouse motions, and thumbstick gestures will result in certain actions in the game, but there’s more to it than that.

玩家在玩游戏时所使用的代理是另一个循环的一部分，游戏设计师必须考虑这个循环。这个循环涉及玩家和游戏硬件及软件。我们将以某人使用控制器玩主机游戏为例。与任何循环一样，我们可以从任何地方开始研究它，但让我们先从玩家对游戏通过屏幕和扬声器发出的图像和声音的感知开始。

The agency that the player uses when they engage with the controls of a game is part of another loop that is very important for game designers to think about. It’s the loop involving both the player and the game’s hardware and software. We’ll use the example of someone playing a console game with a controller. As with any loop, we could examine it starting anywhere, but let’s start with the player’s perceptions of the images and sounds that the game is putting out through a screen and speakers.

玩家的感知会让他们对自己看到和听到的内容产生一些想法和感受，并做出下一步该做什么的决策过程，所有这些我们都可以归类为“认知”。然后他们会采取行动；在这个例子中，就是按下按钮或移动控制器上的拇指杆。

The player’s perceptions lead them to some thoughts and feelings about what they see and hear, and to a decision-making process about what to do next, all of which we can file under “cognition.” Then they take an action; in this example by pressing a button or moving a thumbstick on the controller.

游戏机接收此输入并将其纳入游戏不断执行的计算中。它决定在那一瞬间发生了什么，并向屏幕和扬声器发送一些新的输出，然后循环再次开始（图 10.2）。

The game console receives this input and folds it into the computation that the game is constantly performing. It decides what happened in that split second and sends some new output to the screen and speakers, and so the loop begins again (figure 10.2).

由于玩家的行动基于他们对游戏的理解、他们对游戏系统的心理模型以及他们预期采取特定行动后会发生什么，我们可能会认为控制融入了游戏的每个方面。从游戏当前状态在它的图像和声音，玩家通过反复试验了解到他们可以在游戏中做什么，玩家认为游戏希望他们实现什么目标以及如果他们达到这些目标将会获得什么奖励——这些控制问题散布在游戏设计的各个地方，而不仅仅是哪些按钮可以做什么。

In that the player’s agency is based on what they understand about the game, the mental model they have of the systems on the game, and what they anticipate will happen if they take a certain action, we might see control as woven into the fabric of every aspect of the game. From the way that the game’s current state is represented in its graphics and sound, to what the player has learned through trial and error about what they can do in the game, to what goals the player thinks that the game wants them to achieve and what it will reward them with should they meet those goals—these questions of control are scattered everywhere through the game’s design and aren’t just about which buttons do what.

在他的书《游戏感觉》中，游戏设计师史蒂夫·斯温克在讨论“感知场”时将这种想法更进一步，这是一个来自心理学领域的概念。史蒂夫将这个想法归功于心理学家唐纳德·斯尼格和亚瑟·康布斯，他说：

In his book Game Feel, game designer Steve Swink takes this thinking one step further when he discusses the “perceptual field,” a concept from the world of psychology. Attributing the idea to psychologists Donald Snygg and Arthur Combs, Steve says:

感知场的概念是，感知是在之前所有经验的背景下进行的，包括我们的态度、思想、观念、幻想甚至误解。也就是说，我们不会将事物与之前发生的事情分开来感知。相反，我们通过过滤器、在背景中、在我们自己对世界的个人看法的结构中体验一切^。3

The idea of the perceptual field is that perception is carried out against the backdrop of all previous experience, including our attitudes, thoughts, ideas, fantasies and even misconceptions. That is, we don’t perceive things separately from what’s come before. Rather, we experience everything through the filter, against the background, and within the structure of our own personal vision of the world.³

我觉得这很有趣，而且当我们试图设计出让玩家能够以丰富和令人满意的方式参与的游戏时，这很有帮助。它提醒我们，作为玩家，我们为游戏带来了很多个人、文化甚至政治方面的东西。

I find this fascinating, and it can be helpful when we’re trying to figure out how to design games that players can engage with in rich and satisfying ways. It reminds us that as players, we bring a lot to the games we play that is personal, cultural, and even political.

每款游戏在设计控制时都会有特定的考虑。专注于创建玩家可以轻松发现和使用的控件，以及玩家的操作会立即通过游戏中的某些反应得到确认的控件。考虑游戏的感觉和趣味性，这些概念你可能已经知道，我将在第 22 章中简要介绍。考虑其他游戏使用的控件约定游戏：如果您愿意，它们可能会帮助玩家更轻松地掌握您的游戏。请考虑为残障玩家提供便利。

Each individual game will have specific considerations for the design of its controls. Focus on creating controls that players can discover and use easily, and where player actions are acknowledged immediately by some reaction in the game. Think about game feel and juiciness, concepts that you may already know about, and that I’ll briefly describe in chapter 22. Think about the control conventions used by other games: they might help players pick up your game more easily, if that’s what you want. Consider accessibility for players with a disability.

通过在进行垂直切片时迭代游戏控件的设计，您可以确保您的游戏易于使用、好玩且以有趣的方式具有挑战性 - 或者说它富有表现力、有意义且有趣。

By iterating on the design of your game’s controls as you make a vertical slice, you can ensure that your game is easy to use, fun to play, and challenging in an interesting way—or that it’s expressive, meaningful, and intriguing.

所以，这三个元素是：角色、摄像机和控制。我们必须在预制作期间很好地掌握游戏的这些元素，方法是创建一个垂直切片，其中包含一个或多个经过精雕细琢的玩家角色、他们的核心能力以及游戏的核心机制。

So, the three Cs: character, camera, and control. We must get a good handle on these elements of our game during preproduction by creating a vertical slice with a polished player-character or -characters, their core abilities, and the core mechanics of the game.

样本级别和 Blockmesh 设计过程

Sample Levels and the Blockmesh Design Process

垂直切片还将包括游戏中的一个或多个示例级别（环境），以便我们有一个可以玩的地方并可以了解完成的游戏的外观和声音。

The vertical slice will also include one or more sample levels (environments) from the game, so that we have a place to play in and can get a sense of what the finished game will look and sound like.

大多数游戏关卡设计都是从纸上或白板上开始的。在顽皮狗，我们首先会讨论关卡中的游戏玩法和故事情节，以及关卡需要完成的任务。然后，我们会将我们设想的关卡游戏玩法顺序勾勒成粗略的流程图，如图10.3所示。

Most level design for games starts with work on paper or a whiteboard. At Naughty Dog, we would start by discussing our ideas for the gameplay and story beats in the level, and what the level needed to accomplish. Then, we would sketch out the sequence of gameplay we were imagining for the level as a rough flowchart, as shown in figure 10.3.

使用此流程图，我们将为该级别制作一些松散的图表，包括平面图（自上而下）和立面图（侧视图）（如果需要），如图10.4所示。

Using this flowchart, we would make some loose diagrams for the level, in plan view (top-down) and also in elevation (side view) if necessary, as shown in figure 10.4.

在我早期的项目中，我们会花很多时间为关卡制定详细的架构规划，无论是在纸上还是在 Adob​​e Illustrator 中。随着顽皮狗的关卡设计流程日趋成熟，我们开始减少在详细纸质布局上所花的时间，并迅速从松散的白板草图转向块状网格关卡布局流程。

On my earlier projects we would spend many hours making detailed architectural plans for our levels, on paper or in Adobe Illustrator. As our level design process matured at Naughty Dog, we began to spend less time on detailed paper layout and would move quickly from our loose whiteboard sketches to a blockmesh level layout process.

Blockmesh，也称为 blockout、白盒或灰盒关卡设计，是一种低分辨率的三维几何体，通常有两种类型：可见的可渲染（可见）几何体和用于碰撞的不可见几何体。使用这两种几何体，设计师可以快速轻松地以最基本的形式绘制关卡。最好是设计师在此阶段与艺术家、程序员、动画师、音频设计师以及将参与关卡设计的任何其他人员进行协作。

Blockmesh, also known as blockout, whitebox, or graybox level design, is low-resolution three-dimensional geometry, usually of two types: renderable (visible) geometry that can be seen, and invisible geometry used for collision. Using these two types of geometry, designers can quickly and easily sketch in a level in its most basic form. It’s best when the designer can collaborate at this stage with the artists, programmers, animators, audio designers, and anyone else who will contribute to the level’s design.

随着时间的推移，块状网格将通过连续的迭代来完善，以改进关卡的设计。在某个时候，艺术家将开始开发关卡的视觉外观，首先通过粗略的绘制开始为关卡提供定义，然后通过连续的迭代完成艺术，如图10.5所示。设计师、艺术家和其他所有人都将继续合作，每个人都贡献自己的技能来改进关卡，直到完成。

Over time, the blockmesh will be refined with successive iterative passes to improve the level’s design. At some point artists will begin to develop the level’s visual look, first with rough draw-overs to begin to lend definition to the level, and then with successive passes of finished art, as shown in figure 10.5. Designers, artists, and everyone else will continue to collaborate, each lending their skills to improve the level until it is complete.

Blockmesh 有时会使用颜色编码来显示重要元素，例如可攀爬的边缘或水。如果你对这个过程感兴趣，一定要看看鼓舞人心的#blocktober Twitter 标签（图 10.6）由顽皮狗游戏设计师 Michael Barclay 于 2017 年发起，以纪念 blockmesh，因为用 Michael 的话来说，“关卡封锁就是艺术” ^。4

Blockmesh is sometimes color-coded to show important elements like climbable edges or water. If you’re interested in this process, be sure to look at the inspirational #blocktober Twitter hashtag (figure 10.6) that was started by Naughty Dog game designer Michael Barclay in 2017 to honor blockmesh, because, in Michael’s words, “level blockouts are art.”⁴

对于 2D 游戏，有一个与 3D 块网格关卡设计类似的过程，即我们使用简单的图元在引擎的关卡编辑器中绘制关卡。具体如何完成取决于游戏风格和引擎，但基本原则是相同的：快速粗略地绘制一些可玩的东西，并通过迭代进行改进。

There’s an analogous process to 3D blockmesh level design for 2D games, where we sketch in the level in the engine’s level editor using simple primitives. Exactly how that would be done depends on the game style and engine, but the basic principle is the same: quickly rough in something playable and refine it through iteration.

使用块网格设计流程构建样本关卡是许多游戏创建垂直切片的重要部分，尽管其他关卡设计方法（例如使用程序关卡生成）也可能适用。

Building sample levels using a blockmesh design process is an important part of the creation of a vertical slice for many games, although other level design methods—for example, using procedural level generation—might also be appropriate.

除了关卡设计中的这些简单指针之外，我还推荐这些资源：

In addition to these simple pointers in level design, I recommend these resources:

• 如果您在 GDC Vault (gdcvault.com) 上搜索“关卡设计研讨会”，您可以找到许多关于关卡设计的精彩演讲，这些演讲最初是在 GDC 关卡设计研讨会上进行的。
• You can find many good talks about level design that were originally given at the GDC Level Design Workshop if you search for “level design workshop” on the GDC Vault (gdcvault.com).
• Christopher W. Totten 的书《关卡设计的建筑方法》对该主题进行了高质量和全面的介绍。
• Christopher W. Totten’s book An Architectural Approach to Level Design has high-quality and comprehensive coverage of the subject.
• 升级！斯科特·罗杰斯 (Scott Rogers) 撰写的《优秀视频游戏设计指南》有很多关于关卡设计的精彩片段。
• Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design by Scott Rogers has many great sequences about level design.
• 马修·弗雷德里克 (Matthew Frederick) 所著的《我在建筑学校学到的 101 件事》包含了许多针对建筑师的智慧，但对于关卡设计师来说也很有价值。
• 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick contains a lot of wisdom aimed at architects but valuable to level designers.
• 顽皮狗首席游戏设计师 Emilia Schatz 的文章“定义视频游戏的环境语言”是必读之作。5 ^Emilia是一位非常有洞察力的游戏设计师，她的精彩文章将关卡设计思维与更通用的游戏设计理念融合在一起。
• The article “Defining Environment Language for Video Games” by Naughty Dog lead game designer Emilia Schatz is a must-read.⁵ Emilia is an extraordinarily insightful game designer, and her superb article integrates level design thinking with more general game design philosophy.

垂直切片样本级别的大小和质量

The Size and Quality of Vertical Slice Sample Levels

垂直切片中样本关卡的大小最终将由游戏设计师决定，尽管游戏的利益相关者（例如制作人或投资者）可能会要求关卡达到一定大小。样本关卡应该足够长，以便我们可以玩一段时间，以了解最终游戏的玩法。

The sizes of the sample levels in a vertical slice will ultimately be up to the designers of the game, although the stakeholders in the game (such as its producers or financiers) will probably ask for levels of a certain size. The sample levels should be long enough that we can play for a while, to get a sense of how the finished game will play.

在商业游戏团队中，我们希望样本关卡中的所有内容都像最终游戏中的艺术、动画、设计、代码、声音和音乐一样完整和精致，这样我们的垂直切片才真正可以交付。6^然而，对于许多规模较小的团队，包括学生团队，在前期制作结束时，通常无法设计和“完成”哪怕一个关卡。这就是美丽角落的概念的由来。

On a commercial game team, we’d expect to make everything in our sample levels as complete and as polished as their art, animation, design, code, sound, and music would be in the finished game, so that our vertical slice is truly shippable.⁶ However, for many smaller teams, including student teams, it’s often not possible to design and “art up” even a single level by the end of preproduction. This is where the concept of the beautiful corner comes in.

美丽的角落

The Beautiful Corner

简单来说，美丽的角落是关卡的一部分，足以填满玩家电脑上的一个屏幕，其中的艺术和音频经过打磨，看起来和听起来都和成品游戏一样好。这是游戏中被打磨得美丽的一小角（或者，如果你的游戏不符合传统的美感概念，那么这个小角就是经过加工、精炼或精心制作的）。

Simply put, a beautiful corner is a part of a level, enough to fill a single screen on the player’s computer, where the art and audio have been polished to look and sound as good as they will in the finished game. It’s a little corner of the game which has been made beautiful (or if your game doesn’t conform to traditional notions of beauty, which has been worked, refined, or crafted).

在 3D 游戏中，我们可能会将摄像机对准空间的一角，那里有两面或多面墙与地板和天花板相交。摄像机的“视锥体”是从摄像机的视角可见的楔形空间体积，其视野、长宽比和深度剔除设置均已确定。我们在摄像机视锥体内看到的漂亮角落的一切都应该看起来很棒。这不仅包括背景，还包括存在的物体。我们应该为成品游戏中移动的任何物体制作精美的动画，那里的一切都应该听起来很棒。在游戏设计过程的任何阶段都不要忽视声音设计。

In a 3D game, we might point the camera into the corner of a space, where two or more walls intersect with the floor and ceiling. The camera’s “view frustum” is the wedge-shaped volume of space that is visible from the point of the view of the camera, given its field of view, aspect ratio, and depth-culling settings. Everything that we see of the beautiful corner inside the camera frustum should look great. That includes not just the background but the objects that are present too. We should beautifully animate anything that will be moving in the finished game, and everything there should sound great. Never overlook sound design at any stage of the game design process.

如果我们将相机从美丽的角落移开几度，我们可以看到构成关卡其余部分的低细节块网格。但是通过将相机对准我们美丽的角落，我们可以生动地看到完成的游戏会是什么样子。我在图 10.7中为您绘制了一个例子。

If we turned the camera a few degrees away from the beautiful corner, we could see the low-detail blockmesh that makes up the rest of the level. But by pointing the camera into our beautiful corner, we can vividly visualize what the finished game will be like. I’ve drawn an example for you in figure 10.7.

我们还可以在 2D 游戏的设计中使用“美丽角落”的概念，无论是横向卷轴、自上而下还是等距游戏。同样，我们应该能够将玩家角色和摄像机定位在一个屏幕上的所有内容看起来和听起来都很棒的位置。“美丽角落”的概念甚至可以应用于非数字游戏和游戏的组成部分。您可以完善棋盘游戏或纸牌游戏的一部分，或“alt-controller”游戏的一部分，使其具有新颖或创新的控制界面。

We can also use the concept of a beautiful corner in the design of a 2D game, whether it’s a side-scrolling, top-down, or isometric game. Again, we should be able to position the player-character and camera in a place where everything on the screen looks and sounds great. The concept of a beautiful corner can even be applied to nondigital games and parts of games. You could polish a part of a board game or card game, or a part of an “alt-controller” game with a novel or innovative control interface.

我在游戏行业中某个地方学到了美丽角落这个概念，但我一直没能发现是谁发明的。（这个术语在历史上被用来描述家庭祭坛。）⁷这个概念在构建垂直切片时非常有用。如果我们使用美丽角落，即使我们垂直切片中的大部分关卡是块状网格且不可交付，也没关系：我们仍然可以使用垂直切片来理解我们的核心机制。美丽的角落将展示我们的游戏关卡在完成并完成最终的视觉艺术、动画和音频资产后的外观和声音效果。

I picked up this concept of the beautiful corner somewhere in the game industry, but I haven’t been able to discover who coined it. (The term has historically been used to describe a home altar.)⁷ The concept serves small teams and students incredibly well when building a vertical slice. If we use a beautiful corner, it doesn’t matter if big parts of the levels in our vertical slice are blockmesh and not shippable: we can still use the vertical slice to come to an understanding of our core mechanics in action. The beautiful corner will show how our game’s levels will look and sound when they are complete and finished with final visual art, animation, and audio assets.

正如我们稍后将看到的，为使垂直切片达到可交付的质量水平，我们必须进行的工作，无论是通过创建漂亮的角落还是整个可交付的样品级别，都将以多种不同的方式帮助我们的流程。

As we’ll see later, the work that we have to do to bring a vertical slice to a shippable level of quality, whether by creating a beautiful corner or whole shippable sample levels, will help our process in a number of different ways.

垂直切片的挑战和回报

The Challenge and Reward of the Vertical Slice

构建垂直切片可能是一项艰巨的任务。事实上，这项任务如此艰巨，以至于许多人怀疑是否有可能为大型当代商业视频游戏构建真正的垂直切片。我们可以视为“核心”的游戏元素数量之多，以及创建和完善资产以达到我们当今游戏中的高制作价值标准所需的大量时间，使得垂直切片的挑战一年比一年艰巨。

Building a vertical slice can be a daunting task. So daunting, in fact, that many people doubt whether it’s even possible to build a true vertical slice for a large contemporary commercial videogame. The sheer number of game elements that we could consider “core,” and the huge amount of time it takes to create and polish assets to the standard of the high production values we see in games today, makes the challenge of the vertical slice ever more daunting year by year.

事实上，由于我们在第一款《神秘海域》游戏中遇到的各种制作挫折，我们无法制作真正的垂直切片，而是制作了一部概念电影，将技术演示、关键艺术、动画和粗略的可玩级别剪辑在一起，这有助于我们以与完全可玩的垂直切片相同的方式展示我们游戏的设计。

Indeed, because of various production setbacks that we’d encountered on the first Uncharted game, we weren’t able to make a true vertical slice and instead made a concept movie, cut together from tech demos, key art, animatics, and a rough playable level, which helped us illustrate the design of our game in the same way that a fully playable vertical slice does.

如果我们在垂直切片的思考上保持灵活性——使用漂亮的角落、补充概念电影和其他演示材料来形象化我们游戏的经验——那么垂直切片就成为一个可实现的目标，并且为我们制作游戏的其余部分做好了巨大的准备。

If we stay flexible in our thinking about the vertical slice—using beautiful corners, supplementary concept movies, and other presentation materials to visualize the experience of our game—then the vertical slice becomes a realizable goal and does a huge amount to prepare us to make the rest of our game.

制作垂直切片是我们在致力于游戏设计时必须采取的下一步措施。正如我们之前所讨论的，坚持想法很难。总是感觉承诺为时过早，我们总是对自己的决定犹豫不决。但我们在预制作期间做出的设计承诺使我们的游戏在整个项目过程中保持正轨，我们必须学会有勇气做出这些承诺。

Making the vertical slice is when we have to take our next steps in committing to the design of our game. As we’ve previously discussed, committing to ideas is hard. It always feels too early to commit, and we’re always second-guessing our decisions. But the design commitments we make during preproduction allow our game to stay on track throughout the rest of the project, and we must learn to have the courage to make them.

边制作边设计是我所知道的设计和开发游戏的最佳方式，创造垂直切片的满足感可以向我们自己和其他人展示我们正在做某件事，这对我们团队的士气大有裨益。在下一章中，我们将详细介绍如何构建这个出色的东西。

Designing-by-making is the best way that I know of to design and develop a game, and the satisfaction of creating a vertical slice, to show ourselves and everyone else that we’re on to something, pays dividends in terms of our team’s morale. In the next chapter, we’ll look in detail at how we should go about building this excellent thing.

2. 1. Ludwig Kietzmann，《半分钟光环：对 Jaime Griesemer 的采访》，Engadget，2011 年 7 月 14 日，https://www.engadget.com/2011/07/14/half-minute-halo-an-interview-with-jaime-griesemer/。

3. 1.  Ludwig Kietzmann, “Half-Minute Halo: An Interview with Jaime Griesemer,” Engadget, July 14, 2011, https://www.engadget.com/2011/07/14/half-minute-halo-an-interview-with-jaime-griesemer/.

4. 2.Itay Keren，“向后滚动：横向卷轴游戏中摄像机的理论与实践”，Gamasutra，2015 年 5 月 11 日，https: //gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Scroll_Back_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Cameras_in_SideScrollers.php 。

5. 2.  Itay Keren, “Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers,” Gamasutra, May 11, 2015, https://gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Scroll_Back_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Cameras_in_SideScrollers.php.

6. 3 . Swink，游戏感觉，50。

7. 3.  Swink, Game Feel, 50.

8. 4. Michael Barclay（@MotleyGrue），“关卡设计师们怎么样了”，Twitter，2017 年 10 月 1 日，https://twitter.com/MotleyGrue/status/914571356888371201。

9. 4.  Michael Barclay (@MotleyGrue), “What’s Up Level Designers,” Twitter, October 1, 2017, https://twitter.com/MotleyGrue/status/914571356888371201.

10. 5. Emilia Schatz，“定义视频游戏的环境语言”，80 Level，2017 年 6 月 27 日，https://80.lv/articles/defining-environment-language-for-video-games/。

11. 5.  Emilia Schatz, “Defining Environment Language for Video Games,” 80 Level, June 27, 2017, https://80.lv/articles/defining-environment-language-for-video-games/.

12. 6.游戏开发者和其他类型的创意人员经常谈论“发行”和“可发行”。发行意味着发布或出版一款游戏，以便公众可以享用，而可发行意味着某样东西已经好到可以发行了。这些词来自软件被放到物理媒体上并装进盒子里运送到遥远地方的时代。当有人认为他们正在开发的东西终于足够好了，他们可能会兴高采烈地大喊：“发行吧！”

13. 6.  Game developers and other types of creative people often talk about “shipping” and “shippable.” Shipping means releasing or publishing a game so that it’s available to the public, and shippable means that something is good enough to be released. These words come from a time when software was put onto physical media and placed in boxes to be shipped to distant places. When someone thinks that something they’re working on is finally good enough, they might exultantly cry, “Ship it!”

14. 7. “图标角”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_corner。

15. 7.  “Icon Corner,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_corner.

从原型开始工作

Work from a Prototype

在 2002 年 DICE 大会上对方法的讨论中，马克·塞尼 (Mark Cerny) 描述了“可发布的第一个可玩版本”，这是他后来称之为垂直切片的术语。马克说，我们应该从构思的起点开始：从原型开始。

In his D.I.C.E. 2002 discussion of Method, Mark Cerny describes the “publishable first playable,” his term for what would come to be known as a vertical slice. Mark says that we should start where we started in ideation: with prototypes.

我不必告诉你从制作原型中你学到了多少东西。具体来说，团队正在制作大量连续的原型。重要的是不要等待，然后才开始制作这些原型。利用你拥有的零件，无论多么粗糙，尽你所能地打造最好的产品。因为原型是你学习的地方。…… [这些]原型最终与游戏关卡没有区别。……每个原型都汇集了艺术作品、游戏机制和技术，以展示游戏的整个关卡^。1

I don’t have to tell you how much you learn from making prototypes. Specifically, the team is making lots of successive prototypes. It’s important not to wait before you start making these prototypes. Take the pieces that you have, however sketchy, and build the best you can. Because prototypes are where you learn.… [These] prototypes eventually become indistinguishable from game levels.… Each prototype brings together artwork, game mechanics and technology to show an entire level of a game that could be.¹

因此，我们可以开始进行垂直切片，采用我们在构思过程中制作的原型，通过项目目标的新视角来审视它们，并继续迭代。我们可以采用最强大的单个原型，也可以将两个或多个原型结合起来制作新的东西。

So, we can begin making a vertical slice by taking the prototypes we made during ideation, looking at them through the new lens of our project goals, and continuing to iterate. We can go with the strongest single prototype or combine two or more of them to make something new.

也许我们会重新开始一个比我们以前的任何原型都更能实现我们项目目标的新原型，但正如我在第 5 章中提到的那样，这可能是不明智的。这是你的选择：我相信你会为你的项目做出最好的决定。

Maybe we’ll start over with a new prototype that serves our project goals better than any of our previous prototypes, but as I mentioned in chapter 5, that can be unwise. It’s your choice: I trust you to make the best decision for your project.

创建游戏的早期序列——但不要从头开始

Create an Early Sequence from the Game—but Don’t Make the Very Beginning Yet

当你从原型开始构建代表游戏核心的垂直切片时，你可能会发现自己正在创建成品游戏的早期序列。游戏的基本内容通常在游戏开始时就清楚地显示出来，所以这是一个自然的发展。

As you work from your prototypes to build a vertical slice that represents the core of your game, you’ll probably find yourself creating an early sequence of your finished game. The basics of a game are usually shown clearly toward the start of the game, so this is a natural development.

但是，不要将游戏的开头设计到垂直切片中。允许自己在游戏中向前跳一点，假设玩家到达那里时已经学会了游戏及其故事的基本知识。这将帮助您更有效地、更轻松地掌握游戏的核心。您可以随时使用控制备忘单来让游戏测试员进入您的游戏，就像我们将在第 12 章中讨论的那样。

However, don’t design the very beginning of your game into your vertical slice. Give yourself permission to jump a little way forward into the game, assuming that the player will have learned the very basics of the game and its narrative by the time they get there. This will help you come to grips with the core of your game more effectively and with less difficulty. You can always use a controls cheat sheet to get your playtesters into your game, like the one we’ll discuss in chapter 12.

您可以在第 22 章“游戏应按照什么顺序构建？”中阅读有关这种想法背后的哲学的更多信息。

You can read more about the philosophy behind this thinking, under “What Order Should a Game Be Built In?” in chapter 22.

迭代游戏的核心元素

Iterate on the Core Elements of Your Game

正如我们在制作原型时所做的那样，我们应该开始构建垂直切片，重点关注构成我们正在设想游戏的核心。如果我们在制作原型时对开发方法有点马虎，那么现在是时候在继续前进之前把一切都收紧了。

Just as we did while we were prototyping, we should start building our vertical slice by focusing on the small set of game mechanics, verbs, and player activities that form the core of our game as we’re imagining it. If we had a slightly sloppy approach to development while we were prototyping, now it’s time to tighten everything up before we move forward.

确保游戏性、图像、音频、控制、界面和可用性方面的一切都很可靠。这个垂直部分应该很有趣、易于学习且没有错误。在进行过程中解决问题。我们将在第 13 章中进一步讨论这个问题。

Make everything solid in terms of gameplay, graphics, audio, control, interface, and usability. This vertical slice should be fun to play with, easy to learn, and bug-free. Polish out the problems as you go along. We’ll talk about this more in chapter 13.

请注意 Mark Cerny 在上面引用的这句话中强调了连续原型。这意味着构建然后丢弃最终会变成我们的垂直切片的东西，可能要连续几次。在他的演讲中，Mark 说我们可能会丢弃大约四个不同版本的垂直切片，然后才能最终对它感到满意。他最近告诉我，“正是第五个垂直切片成功地展示了顽皮狗试图实现的目标（通过Crash Bandicoot）；一旦掌握了这一点，我们就会投入生产。感谢 Andy [Gavin] 和 Jason [Rubin] 的耐心，他们以每次迭代五六周的速度进行了多次迭代。”

Notice Mark Cerny’s emphasis on successive prototypes in the quote above. This means building and then discarding the thing that will eventually turn into our vertical slice, maybe several times in a row. In his talk, Mark says that we’ll probably throw away about four different versions of our vertical slice before we’re eventually happy with it. He recently told me, “It was the fifth vertical slice that successfully demonstrated what Naughty Dog was trying to achieve [with Crash Bandicoot]; once this was in hand we headed into production. Kudos to Andy [Gavin] and Jason [Rubin] for the patience to iterate so many times at five or six weeks per iteration.”

如果我们只有几周的时间进行预生产，我们可能没有时间对垂直切片进行五次完整的迭代——但我们可能会至少重新开始一次。我曾经参与制作的每一款游戏中的大多数关卡在开发过程中至少被废弃并重新开始过一次，这就是游戏开发的本质。重新开始的原因有很多：设计和技术发现、团队领导的笔记以及游戏测试反馈。

If we only have a few weeks for preproduction, we probably won’t have time for five full iterations on our vertical slice—but we will probably start over at least once. Most of the levels in every game I’ve ever worked on got junked and restarted at least once during their development, and that’s just the nature of game development. There are many reasons to start over: design and technology discoveries, notes from a team leader, and playtest feedback.

尽早并经常保存您的工作以避免丢失工作是一种很好的游戏开发惯例。使用递增的版本号进行连续保存，以便您可以在需要时回溯。如果您已经在使用版本控制系统（用于管理对计算机文件所做更改的工具），请经常提交。您还可以保存到在线存储服务，以便在需要时返回到较早的版本。如果您确实丢失了工作并不得不重新开始，请不要担心。第二次构建丢失的东西将花费更少的时间。

It’s good general game development practice to save your work “early and often,” to avoid losing work. Make successive saves with incrementing version numbers so that you can backtrack if you need to. If you’re already using a version control system (a tool used to manage the changes made to computer files), make frequent commits. You could also save to an online storage service that lets you go back to an earlier version if needed. If you do ever lose work and have to start over, don’t sweat it. It will take you much less time to build the thing you lost the second time around.

在我们进行垂直切片工作的过程中，事实上，在整个开发过程中，我们都应该不断地测试我们的游戏。我们将在下一章中详细讨论这一点。

Throughout our work on the vertical slice—and indeed, throughout our entire development process—we should constantly be playtesting our game. We’ll look at this in detail in the next chapter.

致力于游戏引擎和硬件平台

Commit to a Game Engine and Hardware Platform

在预制作的某个阶段（越早越好），你应该对制作游戏所用的游戏引擎以及游戏将在哪种操作系统和硬件平台上运行做出明确的决定。在预制作的早期阶段，你可能使用手头上现有的任何游戏引擎来构建垂直切片。然而，你对游戏引擎和平台的决定将影响与游戏创作有关的许多事情，从你使用的工具到你考虑的受众，所以你不应该拖延决定。

At some point during preproduction—the earlier the better—you should make a firm decision about the game engine you will be using to make your game, and what operating system and hardware platform it will run on. It could be that, very early in preproduction, you are building your vertical slice using whatever game engine you have to hand. However, your decisions about game engine and platform will impact many things to do with the creation of your game, from the tools that you use to the audience you’re considering, and so you should not delay in deciding.

如果你选择的游戏机等硬件平台需要你通过认证流程才能发布游戏，那么你应该立即开始熟悉认证要求。您将在第 34 章中阅读更多相关内容。

If you choose a hardware platform like a game console that will require you to pass a certification process before you can release your game, you should immediately begin to familiarize yourself with the requirements for certification. You will read more about this in chapter 34.

践行良好家务管理

Practice Good Housekeeping

“内务管理”是一个古怪的术语，软件开发人员用它来描述一套保持代码库和项目文件夹整洁、有序和维护良好的做法。我们这样做是为了让我们以后的项目规模和复杂性不断增长，从而让自己的工作更加轻松。

“Housekeeping” is the quaint term that software developers use to describe a set of practices around keeping our code base and our project folder tidy, organized, and well-maintained. We do this to make things easier for ourselves later on, as our project grows in size and complexity.

良好的项目文件夹管理可以做到以下几点：

It is good project folder housekeeping to:

• 将您的文件组织到具有层次结构的文件夹中，将类似的文件存放在一起，以便您可以更轻松地找到文件。
• Organize your files into a hierarchy of folders, storing like with like, so that you can find things more easily.
• 当文件夹中包含太多项目导致文件列表难以快速读取（通常为十个左右）时，请使用子文件夹。
• Use subfolders when a folder fills up with enough items that the list of files becomes hard to read through quickly (usually ten or so).

您可以在本书的网站 playfulproductionprocess.com 上找到一个简单的项目文件夹层次结构，可用作管理起点。

You can find a simple project folder hierarchy to use as a housekeeping starting point on this book’s website, playfulproductionprocess.com.

良好的代码管理应做到以下几点：

It is good code housekeeping to:

• 以一种方式构造和注释您的代码，以便当您有一段时间没有查看它或当其他人需要处理它时，可以轻松阅读和理解。
• Structure and comment your code in a way that makes it easy to read and understand when you haven’t looked at it for some time, or when others need to work on it.
• 选择描述性的变量名，但不要太长。
• Choose variable names that are descriptive, but not too long.
• 使用“camelCase”使变量名更具可读性。
• Use “camelCase” to make variable names more readable.
• 遵循命名约定（由团队确定）来提供有关变量的额外信息。例如，使用 _leadingUnderscore 来表示范围内的局部变量。
• Follow naming conventions (determined by the team) to give extra information about variables. For example, use a _leadingUnderscore to denote variables that are local in scope.

其他良好的管理实践包括：

Other good housekeeping practices include:

• 在必要时记录您的工作，使用文件和列表来记录任何可能缺失的重要信息。
• Document your work where necessary, with documents and lists that capture any important information that would be missing otherwise.
• 使用版本控制系统创建代码和资产的在线存储库，可以在团队成员之间共享，并在需要时回滚到以前的版本。
• Use a version control system to create an online repository of code and assets that can be shared among team members and used to roll back to a previous version if you ever need to.

每个团队都有一套自己的最佳管理实践，这些实践基于过去的经验，并随着时间的推移不断完善。如果您在构思时尚未采用良好的管理实践，那么您必须在预生产期间开始采用，以便为您的游戏奠定稳定的基础并加快您的进程。

Every team has its own set of best housekeeping practices, based on past experience and refined over time. If you weren’t already using good housekeeping practices during ideation, then you must start during preproduction, in order to lay a stable foundation for your game and to speed up your process.

顺便说一句，您不再是在开发游戏的原型或测试版本。永远不要将资产、文件夹或脚本称为“tempSomething”。我已经记不清见过多少个项目，其中发行游戏中的玩家角色对象被称为“playerTest”。进入游戏的实体往往会保留下来并不断发展。重命名事物通常很麻烦，这样做甚至可能会破坏游戏。您的垂直切片现在是您的真正项目，因此请相应地选择名称。

By the way, you aren’t working on a prototype or test version of your game anymore. Don’t ever call an asset, folder, or script “tempSomething.” I’ve lost count of how many projects I’ve seen where the player-character object in the shipping game is called “playerTest.” Entities that go into a game have a tendency to stick around and evolve. It’s usually a hassle to rename things and doing so might even break the game. Your vertical slice is now your real project, so choose names accordingly.

开始添加调试功能

Start to Add Debug Functions

预生产阶段是开始向游戏添加调试功能的好时机，这将有助于您高效地开发游戏。调试功能可能以特殊屏幕菜单、作弊键组合或在提示符下输入的命令的形式出现。它们通常只有游戏开发者才能访问，并允许我们在构建游戏时做一些有用的事情。这些可能包括传送到任何级别，使玩家角色免受伤害，或显示通常对玩家隐藏的游戏元素的数字和基于状态的信息。

Preproduction is a good time to start adding debug functions to your game that will help you develop it efficiently. Debug functions might come in the form of special on-screen menus, cheat key combinations, or commands typed in at a prompt. They are usually only accessible to the game’s developers and allow us to do helpful things as we build the game. These might include teleporting to any level, making the player-character invulnerable to damage, or showing numerical and state-based information about elements of the game that is usually hidden from the player.

许多设计师在游戏中添加的第一个调试功能是重置组合键。在测试垂直切片时，游戏经常会卡在某个状态，或者玩家到达终点后想要重新开始。为了避免关闭并重新启动游戏而浪费宝贵的时间，开发人员可以简单地按下作弊键来重置游戏，使其处于与新启动的游戏版本相同的状态。请确保选择一些玩家不太可能意外按下的模糊组合键或游戏手柄按钮 - 例如，同时按住键盘上的“R”和“ = ”。

The first debug function that many designers add to their game is a reset key combination. Very often, when playtesting a vertical slice, the game will get stuck in some state, or the player will reach the end and want to start over. To avoid having to close and restart the game, wasting valuable time, the developer can simply hit the cheat keys to reset the game, putting it into a state that is identical to a freshly launched version of the game. Make sure that you choose some obscure combination of keys or gamepad buttons that the player is unlikely to hit accidentally—for example, holding “R” and “=” on the keyboard at the same time.

尽早失败、快速失败、经常失败

Fail Early, Fail Fast, Fail Often

失败是迭代过程中不可避免的一部分。我们尝试的很多事情都不会成功。这意味着失败并不坏，我们应该相应地调整心态。如果我们尝试的事情失败了，我们应该振作起来，再试一次。

Failure is an inevitable part of the iterative process. A lot of what we’ll try isn’t going to work out. That means that failure isn’t bad, and we should adjust our mindset accordingly. If something we try fails, we should pick ourselves up and have another go.

您可能听说过“早失败、快失败、常失败”这句话，它来自快速原型设计领域，这是一组迭代工业设计技术。这个信条鼓励我们在流程的早期开始构建事物，并尝试尽快了解我们正在构建的东西的“交易破坏者”问题是什么。这将使我们有更多时间尽可能多地尝试构建没有任何重大问题的东西。

You may have heard the saying “Fail early, fail fast, fail often,” which comes from the world of rapid prototyping, a group of iterative industrial design techniques. This credo encourages us to start building things early in our process and to try to understand as soon as we can what the “deal breaker” problems are with what we’re building. That will leave us more time to have as many different attempts as possible at building something that doesn’t have any major problems.

这非常符合本书的设计迭代和持续游戏测试的理念。请记住，在测试您所构建的内容之前，尽量不要工作超过一两个小时。

This fits in well with this book’s philosophy of design iteration and constant playtesting. Remember, try not to work for more than an hour or two before playtesting what you’ve built on someone.

在同一物理空间或在线协同工作

Work in the Same Physical Space or Together Online

如果您在团队中工作，请尽可能尝试与队友在同一个物理空间中一起工作，或者使用视频会议、音频通话或即时消息在线一起工作。在设计游戏时，同时一起工作可以让一切运行得更顺畅。并不是每个人都能在同一物理空间中工作——许多团队分布在全球各地——但如果经常且有规律地进行实时协同工作，即使是少量的实时协同工作也会对游戏项目的顺利运行产生巨大的积极影响。

If you’re working on a team, try to work together in the same physical space as your teammates whenever possible, or work together online using videoconferencing, audio calls, or instant messaging. There is something about working together at the same time that makes everything run more smoothly when designing games. Not everyone can be in the same physical space—many teams are globally distributed—but even small amounts of real time coworking can make a big positive impact on the smooth running of a game project, if they happen frequently and regularly.

这在一定程度上是出于实际考虑：当我们同时工作并能快速讨论某个问题时，就高度复杂的游戏开发流程进行有效沟通会更加容易和快捷。但这也与情感和团队士气有关。当我们通过电子邮件进行异步交流时，很难判断另一个人表现如何。我们说的话是否让他们感到紧张？我们是否需要微调我们的沟通方式，以便我们的队友知道我们尊重和信任他们？

This is partly practical: it’s easier and faster to communicate effectively about the highly complex game development process when we’re working together at the same time and can quickly chat about an issue. But it’s also related to emotion and team morale. It’s hard to tell how another person is doing when we’re communicating asynchronously through email. Did something we said make them tense up? Do we need to fine-tune the way that we’re communicating, so that our teammate knows we respect and trust them?

如果我们想保持有效的合作，就必须防止小误解和沟通不畅演变成大问题。在同一物理空间或同时在线工作是保持良好团队士气的最佳途径，而良好的团队士气对于创造一款优秀的游戏至关重要。

We have to prevent small misunderstandings and miscommunications from building up into bigger problems if we want to keep collaborating effectively. Working in the same physical space or online at the same time is the best path to the good team morale that is essential in the creation of an excellent game.

保存并分类你的设计材料

Save and Categorize Your Design Materials

每个设计过程都会产生大量的设计材料：文档、图片、电影和原始游戏资产，其中很多都不会在最终的游戏中用到。在开发游戏时，你应该保存和分类你制作的所有内容。

Every design process generates a large volume of design material: documents, images, movies, and original game assets, much of which will go unused in the finished game. As you work on your game, you should save and categorize everything that you make.

在你工作时，这需要你付出一些额外的努力。我们很容易急于向前，把未使用的设计材料丢在身后，随意扔在名字选得不太好的文件夹中。但就像我们在引擎的项目文件夹中进行良好的管理一样，我们也应该对我们的设计材料进行良好的管理。同样，你可以在本书的网站 playfulproductionprocess.com 上找到设计材料的示例文件夹层次结构。

This will take a little extra effort when you’re working. It’s tempting to dash forward and leave our unused design materials scattered behind us, dumped in some random folder with poorly chosen names. But just as we practice good housekeeping in our engine’s project folder, so we should practice good housekeeping with our design materials. Again, you can find an example folder hierarchy for your design materials on this book’s website, playfulproductionprocess.com.

每天或每周结束时，花点时间将设计材料分类到正确的文件夹中，确保文件的名称经过精心挑选，以便您以后搜索某些内容时可以轻松理解。然后，无论何时您需要任何设计材料，无论您是在寻找搁置的游戏设计作品，还是在寻找一些非常适合您的社交媒体活动的未使用的概念艺术，您都可以轻松找到它。

At the end of every day or every week, take a moment to sort your design materials into the correct folders, making sure that the files have well-chosen names that you’ll understand easily later when you’re searching for something. Then, whenever you need any of your design materials, whether you’re looking for a piece of game design that you’d set aside or are searching for some unused concept art that would be perfect for your social media campaign, you’ll be able to find it easily.

以项目目标为指导

Be Guided by Your Project Goals

在开始前期制作时，我们的项目目标还记忆犹新：毕竟，我们才刚刚把它们写下来。但是，随着我们忙于构建垂直切片，我们的项目目标很快就会从我们的记忆中消失。因此，请将它们打印出来并贴在工作空间的墙上，以保持它们在您的记忆中。

At the start of preproduction, our project goals are fresh in our minds: after all, we only just wrote them down. But as we get caught up in building our vertical slice, our project goals can quickly fade from our memories. So print them out and put them up somewhere on the wall in your workspace to keep them fresh in your mind.

在处理垂直切片时，请让您的项目目标（尤其是体验目标）指导和关注您的设计。您添加的每项内容是否支持您想要创建的体验或削弱了体验？提出这个问题有助于提供方向，让我们保持正轨。

As you work on your vertical slice, allow your project goals, your experience goal in particular, to guide and focus your design. Does each thing that you add support the experience that you wanted to create or detract from it? Asking that question can be helpful in providing direction to keep us on track.

何时修改项目目标

When to Modify Your Project Goals

有时，当我们在垂直领域工作时，它可能会引导我们走向新的方向。我们可能会偶然发现一些元素的组合，这些元素与我们的项目目标并不完全一致，但每个人都喜欢。我们团队内部和外部的游戏测试员不想在游戏测试结束时停止游戏，而我们，开发团队，对我们正在做的事情感到兴奋。

Sometimes, as we work on a vertical slice, it might lead us in a new direction. We might serendipitously hit on a combination of elements that doesn’t exactly line up with our project goals but that everyone loves. Our playtesters from inside and outside the team don’t want to stop playing at the end of the playtest, and we, the development team, are excited about what we’re making.

此时，您应该考虑修改项目目标，使其与您所发现的内容保持一致。 Tracy Fullerton 说：“我称之为制定或磨练目标——随着您通过迭代更好地理解目标，您并没有改变它们，而是在磨练它们，直达目标的本质。我认为这实际上是‘实现’目标的一个非常重要的部分——将它们磨练到可以实现的程度。” ²

This is a time when you should consider modifying your project goals to bring them into line with what you’ve discovered. Tracy Fullerton says, “I call this crafting or honing the goals—as you understand them better, through iteration, you are not changing them, so much as honing them down, getting to the essence of your goals. I think it is actually quite an important part of ‘meeting’ your goals—to hone them to the point where they are achievable.”²

当然，这样做有一定的风险——如果你不断改变前进的方向，你可能会陷入原地踏步。仔细思考，不要不断地对项目目标做出许多小的改变，而是要明确你的新方向，并进行改变，使它们与你在设计、实施、游戏测试和分析的迭代周期中产生的游戏保持一致。然后坚持下去。

There’s some risk in this, of course—if you keep changing the direction that you’re moving in, you might end up going around in circles. Think carefully, and rather than constantly making many small changes to your project goals, get clear about your new direction, and change them so that they align with the game that has emerged from your iterative cycle of design, implementation, playtesting, and analysis. Then stick with them.

我们通过构建垂直切片来做什么

What We Are Doing by Building the Vertical Slice

好的，让我们继续看看构建垂直切片会给我们带来什么。通过构建垂直切片，我们可以做四件重要的事情。

Okay, let’s move on to look at what building a vertical slice will get us. By building the vertical slice, we’re doing four important things.

预生产无法按常规安排

Preproduction Cannot Be Scheduled Conventionally

在 2002 年 DICE 大会上的演讲中，马克·塞尼宣称“可以规划和安排游戏创作”的想法只是一个神话，并赢得了观众的热烈掌声^。4

In his D.I.C.E. 2002 talk, Mark Cerny declared that the idea that “it is possible to plan and schedule the creation of your game” is a myth, receiving a round of applause from his audience in response.⁴

每位经验丰富的游戏开发者都知道，我们这个领域的创造力就像骑着一匹野马。它会带我们到处游走，在我们发现游戏玩法、故事和开发方法的真相时，总会将我们引向意想不到的新方向。这就是创造力之美的一部分，它让每一次开发经历都成为一次独特的旅程，让我们能够从中学到关于设计过程、游戏和我们自己的新知识。

Every experienced game developer knows that creativity in our field is like riding a bucking horse. It pulls us this way and that, always leading us in unexpected new directions as we make discoveries about the realities of our gameplay, our story, and our development methods. That’s part of the beauty of creativity, and it’s what makes every development experience a unique journey, where we can learn new things about the design process, about games, and about ourselves.

当 Mark Cerny 说我们无法规划和安排游戏的创作时，他并不是说我们不会安排项目的任何部分。我曾与 Mark 密切合作，因此我知道他非常重视游戏项目整个制作阶段的良好安排。他解释说，在预制作期间，当我们确定要制作的内容的基本模板时，项目不能按照任务列表和里程碑进行。

When Mark Cerny says that we can’t plan and schedule the creation of a game, he isn’t saying that we won’t schedule any part of our project. Having worked closely with Mark, I know how much he values good scheduling for the full production phase of a game project. He is explaining that during preproduction, when we’re figuring out the basic template for what we’re going to make, the project can’t be run according to task lists and milestones.

当我们通过构建垂直切片进行设计时，我们正在寻找那种顿悟时刻！就像阿基米德注意到洗澡水上升一样，我们最终通过实际工作了解了游戏设计的一些理论。许多人认为，达到这一顿悟时刻的最佳方式是自由而直观地工作——而且你不能按计划行事。在他的演讲中，马克·塞尼将此称为预生产阶段的“重要混乱”，并表示我们必须允许它混乱，否则它就无法正常工作。

When we’re designing-by-building a vertical slice, we’re looking for that eureka! moment when, like Archimedes noticing his bathwater rise, we finally understand something theoretical about our game’s design because of the practical work we’re doing. Many people feel that the best way to reach this moment of revelation is to work freely and intuitively—and that you can’t schedule your way there. In his talk, Mark Cerny calls this the “vital chaos” of preproduction and says that we must allow it to be chaotic or it won’t work properly.

当然，每位设计师在前期制作期间都会使用某种结构化流程（例如迭代设计循环），您应该使用适合您的任何方法来帮助您找到适合您团队的适量关键混乱。只需尽力保持事情的松散和适应性即可。

Of course, every designer will use some kind of structured process during preproduction—the iterative design loop, for example—and you should use whatever methods work for you, to help you find the right amount of vital chaos for your team. Just do your best to keep things loose and adaptable.

时间盒

Timeboxing

虽然预生产不能按照常规安排，但这并不意味着我们应该让它无限期地进行下去。时间盒是项目管理中一个众所周知的概念，在敏捷开发中被广泛使用。当你为工作设定时间盒时，你会给它设定一个固定的时间量。如果你开始用完时间，你就必须减少你正在处理的任务范围，因为时间盒的长度是固定的。这样一来，时间盒就像在下快棋——你有一些时间去思考，然后你必须采取行动做出决定。

Just because preproduction can’t be scheduled conventionally, that doesn’t mean we should allow it to run on indefinitely. Timeboxing is a well-known concept from project management that is used a lot in agile development. When you timebox your work, you give it a set amount of time. If you start to run out of time, you have to reduce the scope of the task you’re working on, because the length of the timebox is fixed. In this way, timeboxing is like playing speed chess—you get some time to think, and then you must act to make a decision.

约束是设计师最好的朋友，因为约束能激发我们的创造力。它们给我们提供具体的问题来解决，迫使我们以超出常规的方式思考。约束可以帮助我们克服“白纸问题”，因为它以挑战的形式给我们一个起点，并且可以给我们动力和专注力。时间盒是时间上的约束，因此它可以帮助我们停止拖延。它促使我们采取行动，帮助我们对游戏设计做出更具体的决定。从实际角度来看，能够在规定时间内完成工作对于确保项目资金和在里程碑时获得报酬非常重要。

A constraint is a designer’s best friend, because constraints bring out our creativity. They give us concrete problems to solve and force us to think beyond our usual ways of doing things. Constraints can help us overcome the “blank-sheet-of-paper problem” by giving us a starting point in the form of a challenge, and they can give us motivation and focus. Timeboxing is a constraint in time, and so it can help us stop procrastinating. It nudges us into action, helping us to make ever more specific decisions about the design of our game. In practical terms, being able to deliver work within a set time is important for securing funding for a project and for getting paid at milestones.

时间限制的诀窍是时刻关注时钟，了解何时必须开始收尾。我们所有人都可以永远摆弄我们正在制作的东西，特别是如果我们喜欢制作它的话。但总有一天你不再真正打磨它了；你只是在做更多的改变。要记住的一句格言是列奥纳多·达芬奇经常说的：“艺术永远不会完成，只会被抛弃。”每个有创造力的人都必须决定他们的作品什么时候才足够好。游戏设计师通常可以指望他们的游戏测试员来告诉他们，随着经验的积累，你会发现更容易知道什么时候事情完成了。

The trick of timeboxing is to keep one eye on the clock and understand when you have to start wrapping everything up. We could all keep fiddling forever with something we’re making, especially if we’re enjoying making it. But there comes a time when you’re not really polishing anymore; you’re just making more changes. A good maxim to keep in mind is one often attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Each creative person has to decide when their work is good enough. Game designers can often look to their playtesters to tell them, and as you gain experience you will find it easier to know when something is done.

有时，您快要到达时间限制的末尾，但工作却还没有完成或还不够好。这时，您就应该与合作伙伴和利益相关者进行讨论。谈谈您要实现的目标、您认为需要花费多少时间，以及您是否应该更改计划，尝试实现更少的目标或不同的目标。

Sometimes you get close to the end of a timeboxing period, and the work is simply not finished or not yet good enough. That’s the time to have a discussion with your collaborators and stakeholders. Talk about what you’re trying to achieve, how much time you think it will take, and whether you should change your plans to try and achieve fewer things or different things.

软件开发人员将这份可实现事项列表称为项目范围，我们将在本书中讨论项目范围、重新确定范围和范围蔓延。当然，最好在时间限制结束之前讨论范围。随着经验的积累，大多数游戏设计师在接近时间限制结束的里程碑时，越来越习惯于随时重新确定范围。

Software developers call this list of achievable things the scope of a project, and we’ll be talking about project scope, rescoping, and scope creep throughout the course of this book. Of course, it is better to have this discussion about scope before we reach the end of a timebox. Most game designers, as they gain experience, become more and more comfortable with rescoping on the fly as they approach the milestone marking the end of a timeboxed period.

这里有一种方法可以考虑范围。众所周知，1938 年的闹剧喜剧《育婴奇谭》对《神秘海域：德雷克的宝藏》的设计产生了巨大影响。游戏导演艾米·亨尼格从凯瑟琳·赫本和加里·格兰特之间的快速对话中获得灵感，创作了埃琳娜·费舍尔和内森·德雷克的角色。《育婴奇谭》的导演霍华德·霍克斯曾被问及一部伟大电影的本质。他的回答是：“三个精彩的场景，没有糟糕的场景。”

Here’s one way to think about scope. The 1938 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby famously had a big influence on the design of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Game director Amy Hennig took inspiration from the rapid-fire banter between Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in writing the characters of Elena Fisher and Nathan Drake. The director of Bringing Up Baby, Howard Hawks, was once asked to define what made a great movie. His answer was, “Three great scenes, no bad ones.”

游戏也是如此。我在职业生涯的初期就了解到，玩家不会因为时间不够而错过你没有放入游戏中的东西，但他们会注意到游戏中的糟糕之处，因为你没有时间让它们变得更好。作为一名游戏设计师，你是一个系统思考者，所以你知道一小套规则可以创造一个巨大而迷人的“可能性空间”（玩游戏时可能发生的所有不同事情的抽象空间）。所以，当你开始没有时间时，不要急着把所有东西都塞进你的游戏里，而是从设计中删掉一些东西，利用你已有的东西，让现有的部分以更系统有趣的方式互动。你可能需要注意久经考验的写作建议，并“放弃你的最爱”，放弃那些不真正属于游戏的想法，即使它们对你来说可能意义重大。

And so it goes for games. I learned back at the start of my career that players won’t miss the things you don’t put into your game for want of time, but they will notice things in your game that are bad because you ran out of time to make them good. As a game designer, you’re a systems thinker, so you know that a small set of rules can create a huge and fascinating “possibility space” (the abstract space of all of the different things that might happen when a game is played). So, when you start to run out of time, instead of racing to cram everything into your game, cut some things from the design, work with what you have, and make the parts that are present interact in more systemically interesting ways. You may need to take note of the time-tested writing advice and “kill your darlings,” letting go of ideas that don’t truly belong in the game, even though they might mean a lot to you.

当您在垂直切片上设定时间限制时，请记住并非所有事情都需要在预生产结束前完成。Mark Cerny 说：“您无法安排解决所有看似棘手的问题的日期。” ⁵专注于设计的核心，并运用您的技能和判断力来确定哪些问题可以等到全面生产（预生产之后的项目阶段）后再解决。

When you’re timeboxing work on your vertical slice, remember that not everything needs to be completed by the end of preproduction. Mark Cerny says, “You can’t schedule the date when you will have worked out all of your seemingly intractable problems.”⁵ Focus on the core of your design and use your skill and judgment to figure out which issues you can wait to resolve later during full production (the project phase that comes after preproduction).

使用时间限制可以帮助您摆脱拖延的坏习惯，并通过行动来坚持自己的想法。对每个项目阶段（而不仅仅是预生产阶段）进行时间限制，可以可靠地帮助我们推进项目，在正确的时间做出正确的决定。如果有像我这样的游戏设计教授为您布置任务，那么做到这一点会更容易，但是如果您是专业团队的一员，请记住您的制作人对于让您按时完成任务的重要性。

Use timeboxing to help you break your bad habits of procrastination and commit to your ideas through action. Timeboxing each project phase, not just preproduction, reliably helps us to move forward through the project, committing to the right decisions at the right times. It’s easier to do this when you have a game design professor like me setting you assignments, but if you’re on a professional team, remember how important your producers are in holding you accountable to getting things done on time.

在创建垂直切片时，要善待你的团队和你自己。有时前期制作很容易，有时很难。边设计边制作很有挑战性工作中，有许多不同的因素在起作用：智力、情感、抱负和艺术。确保你和你的团队从你的导师、朋友和专业同行那里得到你需要和应得的帮助和支持。

Be kind to your team and to yourself during the creation of the vertical slice. Sometimes preproduction is easy, and sometimes it’s hard. Designing-by-making is challenging work, with many different factors in play: intellectual, emotional, aspirational, and artistic. Make sure that you and your team get the help and support you need and deserve, from your mentors, your friends, and your professional peers.

请记住，出色的游戏设计并不一定源自天赋或出色的技术能力。通常，出色的游戏设计源自于做出决定、灵活思考如何实现体验目标以及仔细记录玩家的成功之处。不要忽视看似微不足道的成功。通过抓住玩家哪怕最简单的积极反应，并通过更多的设计工作将其放大，我们可以制作出真正出色、情感深刻且令人难忘的游戏。

Remember that great game design does not necessarily come from innate genius or outstanding technical ability. More usually, it comes from simply committing to a decision, thinking flexibly about how to achieve an experience goal, and taking careful note of what is succeeding with players. Don’t overlook successes that seem modest or trivial. By seizing on even the simplest positive reaction from a player and amplifying it with more design work, we can make truly great, deeply emotional, and highly memorable games.

在你们努力克服这一挑战的过程中，请保持耐心。如果你们互相鼓励，互相指导，共同度过难关，你们就会像我一样看到垂直切片：它是实践更健康的游戏制作流程的重要工具，也是设计、工艺和艺术统一的体现。

Remain patient with each other as you struggle through this challenging process. If you nurture each other’s efforts, and guide each other through your travails, you will come to see the vertical slice in the same way that I do: as an essential tool in the practice of healthier game production processes, and as embodying the unison of design, craft, and art.

在下一章中，我们将介绍一种严格的游戏测试方法，该方法受到顽皮狗所用流程的启发，可帮助您从构建垂直切片所使用的迭代设计流程中获得最佳结果。

In the next chapter we’ll look at a rigorous playtesting method, inspired by the process we used at Naughty Dog, that will help you get the best results from the iterative design process used in building a vertical slice.

2. 1. Mark Cerny，“DICE Summit 2002”，https://www.youtube.com/watch ? v=QOAW9ioWAvE，7:21。

3. 1.  Mark Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOAW9ioWAvE, 7:21.

4. 2.私人通信，2020 年 5 月 25 日。

5. 2.  Private communication, May 25, 2020.

6. 3. Jon Paquette 和 Mel MacCoubrey，Script Lock，第 46 集，2019 年 2 月 18 日，https://scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-46-jon-paquette-mel-maccoubrey。

7. 3.  Jon Paquette and Mel MacCoubrey, Script Lock, ep. 46, February 18, 2019, https://scriptlock.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-46-jon-paquette-mel-maccoubrey.

8. 4. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，3：40。

9. 4.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 3:40.

10. 5. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，5：23。

11. 5.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 5:23.

设计师模型、系统形象和用户模型

The Designer’s Model, the System Image, and the User’s Model

我喜欢使用设计师模型、系统图像和用户模型的概念来帮助我思考游戏的易读性。它们来自《日常事物的设计》，这是一本影响深远的书，作者是可用性设计师和心理学家唐纳德·诺曼。这本书深受游戏设计师和交互设计师的喜爱，因为它提供了关于人们如何感知和与系统交互的见解。

I like to use the concepts of the designer’s model, the system image, and the user’s model to help me think about the legibility of a game. They come from The Design of Everyday Things, a highly influential book by the usability designer and psychologist Donald A. Norman. This book is beloved by game designers and interaction designers for the insights it offers about how people perceive and interact with systems.

在唐·诺曼看来，设计师模型是设计师在脑海中对游戏（或其他类型的交互系统）的看法。这是“设计师对产品的外观、感觉和操作的构想。” ²系统映像是游戏如何真正呈现给玩家。“系统图像是从已构建的物理结构（包括文档）中得出的。” ³设计师希望这与他们的模型接近，但实际上可能完全不同，特别是在设计的早期迭代中。

In Don Norman’s thinking, the designer’s model is how the designer sees the game (or some other kind of interactive system) in their head. It’s “the designer’s conception of the look, feel, and operation of a product.”² The system image is how the game actually presents itself to the player. “The system image is what can be derived from the physical structure that has been built (including documentation).”³ The designer hopes that this is close to their model, but it might actually be quite different, especially in an early iteration of the design.

最后，用户模型是玩游戏的人脑子里在想什么。“用户的心智模型是通过与产品和系统形象的互动而形成的。” ⁴但用户也有自己的经验、偏见和解读系统形象所展示事物的能力（Steve Swink 在《游戏感觉》中谈到的“感知场” ）。5^这会在用户模型和系统形象之间造成理解上的鸿沟。如果系统形象与设计师的模型不太匹配，那么用户模型就会离设计师的模型越来越远，就像“电话”游戏扭曲和歪曲信息一样。正如唐·诺曼所说：“设计师希望用户的模型与他们自己的模型相同，但由于他们无法直接与用户沟通，所以沟通的负担就落在了系统形象身上。” ⁶

Finally, the user model is what is going on in the head of the person playing the game. “The user’s mental model is developed through interaction with the product and the system image.”⁴ But the user brings their own experience, biases, and ability to interpret the things that the system image shows them (the “perceptual field” that Steve Swink talks about in Game Feel).⁵ This can create a gulf of understanding between the user model and the system image. And if the system image doesn’t quite match the designer’s model, then the user model can drift even further away from the designer’s model, like a game of “telephone” warping and distorting a message. As Don Norman says: “Designers expect the user’s model to be identical to their own, but because they cannot communicate directly with the user, the burden of communication is with the system image.”⁶

经验丰富的游戏设计师第一次听到这个消息时通常会大吃一惊，因为他们已经知道与游戏玩家进行有效沟通是多么困难。我们的游戏和故事中的概念和机制通常很复杂、很抽象，要以可靠的方式将它们传达给玩家非常困难。我们使用的间接沟通方法使情况变得更加具有挑战性。

Experienced game designers often have a shock of recognition when they hear about this for the first time, because they’ve already learned how difficult it is to communicate effectively with the players of their games. The concepts and mechanisms in our games and stories are often complex and abstract, and getting them across to our players in a reliable way is extremely tough. The situation is made even more challenging by the indirect methods of communication we’re using.

为了解决这些问题，我们通常必须通过多个渠道同时向玩家传达相同的概念：系统的外观、元素的形状和颜色、我们看到它的功能、我们通过文本或语音明确说明的内容以及我们设置的训练序列。我们必须分层传递信息，重复沟通（通过多个渠道同时传达相同的内容），直到每个玩我们游戏的人都能理解。

To address these issues, we often have to communicate the same concept to the player through many channels at once: the way the system looks, what shape and color its elements are, what we see it do, what we explicitly say about it through text or speech, and the training sequences we set up. We have to layer the information we deliver, communicating redundantly (communicating the same thing through multiple channels at once) until everyone who plays our game can get it.

可供性和标志

Affordances and Signifiers

唐纳德·诺曼 (Don Norman) 描述了系统图像如何通过“可供性”和“符号”传达给用户。可供性的概念来自心理学家詹姆斯·吉布森 (James J. Gibson)，他在其著作《视觉感知的生态学方法》中概述了一种与动物利用环境的方式相关的“可供性理论”。诺曼将这个想法提炼为可供性，定义哪些行为是可能的，以及符号，它“规定了人们如何发现这些可能性：能指就是符号，是可以做什么的可感知信号。” ⁷

Don Norman describes how the system image gets communicated to the user through “affordances” and “signifiers.” The concept of affordances comes from the psychologist James J. Gibson, who, in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, outlines a “theory of affordances” related to the way animals use their environment. Norman refined this idea into a theory of affordances, which “define what actions are possible,” and signifiers, which “specify how people discover those possibilities: signifiers are signs, perceptible signals of what can be done.”⁷

可供性和符号的典型例子是一扇门，它只能朝一个方向打开，而不能朝另一个方向打开。设计精良的门会在一侧有一个把手，必须将其拉向你才能打开，在另一侧有一个金属推板，必须将其推开。把手和推板的符号传达了开启的可供性和方向。

The classic example of affordances and signifiers is that of a door which can swing open in one direction but not the other. A well-designed door will have a handle on the side that must be pulled toward you to open it, and a metal push plate on the side that must be pushed. The signifiers of the handle and push plate convey the affordance of the opening, as well as its direction.

人们经常将这两个概念放在一起称为“可供性”，但我们必须认识到可供性和能指是截然不同的。一款电子游戏可能有这样一项功能，如果我在关卡的某个地方静止站立超过五秒钟，我就会立即自动移动到关卡中的另一个地方。这项功能就是可供性：一种使用时会产生结果的机制。但如果关卡中的那个地方没有任何标记，那么这就是一个相当奇怪的功能。我们无法找到这个自动移动点，除非偶然发现，如果没有任何解释就发现自己在关卡的其他地方，那会让人迷失方向。如果我知道它在某个地方，但我不知道在哪里，那么也许我可以通过繁琐的反复试验找到它。这可能看起来像是一个错误，而不是一个功能。

People often run these two concepts together under “affordance,” but it’s important to recognize affordance and signifier as distinct. A videogame might have a feature whereby if I stand still in a certain place in a level for more than five seconds, I automatically and instantly get moved to another place in the level. This feature is an affordance: a mechanism that, when used, leads to an outcome. But if that place in the level isn’t marked in any way, this is a pretty weird feature. We have no way of finding this auto-move spot except by accident, and it would be disorienting to find myself elsewhere in a level without any explanation. If I know that it’s there somewhere, but I don’t know where, then maybe I can find it by a tedious process of trial and error. It would probably seem like a bug, rather than a feature.

但是，如果我们在这个自动移动点放置一个平台，并且平台上有一块发光的地板，可以站在上面，地板会安静地嗡嗡作响，当我站在上面时，地板会开始更大声地嗡嗡作响，也许面板上会倒数一个数字“5、4、3 …… ”，我的玩家角色周围会出现光芒，当我移动到新位置时，会发出类似雷声的音效——那么，我们就设计了一个传送器。平台的符号、发光面板、音效和视觉效果以及倒计时读数都清楚地传达了可供性的功能。在这两种情况下，可供性在功能上是相同的。正是这些符号将无用的游戏机制变成了我们作为游戏设计师的拿手好戏。

However, if we place a platform at this auto-move spot, and the platform has a glowing floor panel to stand on which hums quietly to itself, which begins to hum more loudly when I stand on it, perhaps with a number counting down on the panel, “5, 4, 3 …,” a glow that appears around my player-character, and a zapping, crack-of-thunder sound effect when I’m moved to the new location—then we have designed a teleporter. The signifiers of the platform, the glowing panel, the sound effects and visual effects, and the countdown readout, all clearly convey the functioning of the affordance. The affordance is functionally the same in both cases. It is the signifiers that turn something useless as a game mechanic into a part of our stock-in-trade as game designers.

游戏测试的可读性和体验

Playtesting for Legibility and Experience

希望你能开始想象我们如何通过游戏测试来调查这些相对客观的易读性问题。只需观察人们玩游戏，我们就能发现设计师的模型、系统形象和用户之间的重叠或脱节模型，以及通过符号传达可供性的方式。通过提出后续问题，我们可以加深对游戏测试员理解的了解。

Hopefully you can start to imagine how we can investigate these relatively objective issues of legibility through playtesting. Just by watching people play, we can look at the overlap or disconnect between the designer’s model, the system image, and the user’s model, and the way that affordances are communicated through signifiers. By asking follow-up questions, we can refine our understanding of our playtesters’ understanding.

我们还可以通过游戏测试来调查人们在玩我们的游戏时的体验，虽然这个过程可能更为复杂，因为它更加主观，但我们可以通过使用同样的技术，即观察人们玩游戏并在之后与他们交谈，学到很多东西。为了了解我们的游戏如何吸引人们——无论是游戏的可读性还是他们创造的体验——我们应该采用一些最佳实践来帮助指导我们的游戏测试过程。

We can also use playtesting to investigate the experiences that people have when they play our games, and while this process can be rather more complex because it’s much more subjective, we can learn a lot by using the same techniques of watching people play and talking to them afterward. In order to look at how our games land with people—in terms of both the legibility of our games and the experiences they create—we should adopt some best practices to help guide our playtest process.

游戏测试的最佳实践

Best Practices for Playtesting

在我的专业实践过程中，我根据从导师那里学到的知识、阅读材料以及我在工作室中看到的行之有效的做法，制定了一套游戏测试的最佳实践。游戏测试的最佳实践始终取决于游戏及其环境，但这些基本规则灵活且适应性强，同时也适用于大多数情况。让我们开始吧。

Over the course of my professional practice, I developed a set of best practices for playtesting, based on what I learned from my mentors and my reading, and things that I saw working well in the studio. Best practices for playtesting will always be dependent on the game and its context, but these basic ground rules are flexible and adaptable, while also being appropriate for most situations. Let’s dive right in.

必要时准备一份控制备忘单

Prepare a Controls Cheat Sheet if Necessary

精心设计的游戏通常会通过逐一介绍控制机制并让玩家练习每一种来教会玩家如何控制游戏。然而，在开发初期的游戏通常不会包含任何此类培训。一些设计师只是口头解释游戏的控制方式，从而在游戏测试过程中引入了多变性和偏见。经验丰富的游戏设计师会通过快速准备一份控制备忘单来显示控制方案，从而使事情变得更加客观。并向每位游戏测试员展示同一张表格（见图12.1）。可以在游戏测试开始时展示一次，也可以放在附近的桌子上以供持续参考。同样，目标是在游戏测试结束前完全避免与游戏测试员交谈。

A well-designed game will usually teach its players how to control it by introducing the control mechanisms one at a time, and letting the player practice each one. However, a game early in its development often won’t yet include any such training. Some designers just explain the game’s controls verbally, introducing variability and bias into their playtesting process. Experienced game designers will make things more objective by quickly preparing a controls cheat sheet that shows the control scheme, and by showing the same sheet to every playtester (see figure 12.1). It can either be shown once at the start of the playtest or left on the table nearby for ongoing reference. Again, the goal is to avoid talking to your playtester at all until after the playtest.

准备一份书面提示或帮助，以帮助玩家解决任何已知的游戏问题或功能问题

Prepare a Written Hint or Helper to Help Players with Any Known Gameplay Issues or Functional Issues

很多时候，我们测试的游戏会出现一些我们已知的问题，而这些问题会影响我们从玩家那里获得良好反馈的能力。也许我们在游戏测试前重新照亮了关卡，现在一个应该很容易看到的门却完全被阴影遮住了。（这在《神秘海域》中经常发生。）也许有一个错误，意味着游戏测试员只有在被告知该怎么做的情况下才能继续。这时就需要使用书面提示或帮助（见图12.2）。写下游戏测试员处理已知问题所需的信息，然后在适当的时候向他们展示，而无需说话。就像控制备忘单一样，这为每个玩家提供了完全相同的信息，使我们的游戏测试统一。但要小心：这种方法只适用于紧急情况，即你知道玩家肯定会卡住，而且不可能自己想出如何继续。

Very often, a game that we’re testing will have an issue we know about, and which interferes with our ability to get good feedback from our players. Maybe we relit the level just before the playtest, and now a doorway that should be easy to see is completely and accidentally hidden in shadow. (This happened to us a lot on Uncharted.) Maybe there’s a bug that means that the playtester can only proceed if they’re told what to do. That’s the time to use a written hint or helper (see figure 12.2). Write down the information the playtester needs in order to deal with the known problem, and then show it to them at the appropriate time, without speaking. Just like a controls cheat sheet, this gives every player exactly the same information, making our playtests uniform. But be careful: this approach is only for use in emergencies when you know that the player is definitely going to get stuck, and couldn’t possibly work out how to proceed on their own.

进行常规游戏测试

Running Regular Playtests

在我能想到的大多数游戏设计过程中，定期进行游戏测试非常重要，无论是与从未玩过游戏的人一起，还是与很久没玩过游戏的人一起。在专业环境中，这些游戏测试可以采取多种形式：队友之间互相测试、朋友和家人游戏测试、与游戏粉丝社区成员进行抢先体验游戏测试等等——我们的想象力是唯一的限制。在学术环境中，在专注于创作作品的课堂上，我认为几乎每周进行课堂游戏测试或要求学生每周在课外进行游戏测试都是合适的。将游戏测试变成游戏设计实践中根深蒂固的一部分需要付出努力，教师可以帮助学生养成这种健康的习惯。

In most every type of game design process that I can imagine, it’s important to run regular playtests, either with people who haven’t played the game before or with people who haven’t played it in a while. In a professional context, these playtests could take many forms: teammates testing with each other, friends and family playtests, early access playtests with members of the game’s fan community, and so on—our imagination is the only limit. In an academic setting, in a class focused on making creative work, I think that it’s appropriate either to run in-class playtests almost every week or to require students to playtest every week outside of class. It takes work to make playtesting into an ingrained part of one’s game design practice, and teachers can support students in developing this healthy habit.

Mark Cerny 曾经告诉我，也许你只需要 7 位不同的游戏测试员就能了解你的游戏在人们心目中的反响，而且应该每周获得接近这个数量的新游戏印象非常容易。在项目的每个阶段测试您所拥有的一切：构思阶段的原型、预生产阶段即将成为垂直切片的版本以及全面生产阶段处于构建阶段的游戏。学会了解您可以在每个阶段通过游戏测试获得的不同类型的设计见解。

Mark Cerny once told me that perhaps you need as few as just seven different playtesters to understand how your game is landing with people in general, and it should be quite easy to get close to this number of new impressions of your game every week. Test whatever you have at each stage of the project: prototypes during ideation, builds that are on the way to becoming a vertical slice during preproduction, and games that are in some stage of build-out during full production. Learn to see the different types of design insight that you can gain through playtesting at each stage.

通过在整个项目过程中定期进行游戏测试，良好的游戏测试实践将深深植根于我们团队的每个人心中，并且当我们准备在全面制作过程中进行正式的游戏测试时，我们使用的额外工具不会太过繁琐，一切都会顺利进行。

By running regular playtests throughout the course of the project, good playtesting practice will become deeply ingrained in everyone on our team, and by the time we’re ready to run formal playtests during full production, the extra tools that we’ll use won’t be overwhelming, and things will run smoothly.

评估游戏测试反馈

Evaluating Playtest Feedback

理解游戏测试的结果可能很困难，我们必须严格遵守处理过程的方式。仅凭记忆几乎不可能对游戏测试反馈做出连贯的评估，因为记忆会受到情绪的影响。这就是为什么在游戏测试和离职面谈期间做大量笔记很重要，以便客观地记录我们的观察结果。

Making sense of the results of a playtest can be difficult, and we must be disciplined in the way that we approach the process. It’s almost impossible to make a coherent evaluation of playtest feedback based on memory alone, since memory is skewed by emotion. That is why it’s important to take lots of notes during the playtest and the exit interview, to create an objective record of our observations.

在回顾我的笔记时，我发现很多笔记很容易分为以下三类：

In reviewing my notes, I find that a lot of them fall easily into one of three categories:

1. 破损：必须修复。这些是设计或实施方面的问题，导致玩家无法获得我们想要的体验。可能的修复方法通常非常明显。
2. Broken: Must Fix. These are problems of design or implementation that keep the player from having the kind of experience we want them to have. The possible fixes are usually quite obvious.
3. 问题：也许可以修复。这些可能不起作用，至少没有按预期发挥作用，值得进一步调查。这些问题可能存在于设计中（设计师的模型）、游戏（系统形象）或玩家对游戏的理解中（用户模型）。我们必须更仔细地研究这些问题，因为解决方案尚不清楚。
4. Question: Maybe Fix. These are things that might not be working, at least not as intended, and that warrant further investigation. These problems could be in the design (the designer’s model), in the game (the system image), or in the player’s comprehension of the game (the user model). We must look more closely at these issues because the solution is not yet clear.
5. 建议：一个新想法。游戏测试期间会出现很多新想法，它们可能是游戏设计中的精华，也可能与我们想要实现的目标完全无关。通过讨论建议，接受一些建议并拒绝其他建议，我们可以完善游戏设计。
6. Suggestion: A New Idea. A lot of new ideas will bubble up during playtests, and they might be game design gold, or they could be totally irrelevant to what we’re trying to achieve. By discussing the suggestions, accepting some and rejecting others, we can finesse our game’s design.

审查并整理笔记后，打开你写下项目目标的文档。对于每条笔记，问问自己：根据这些反馈采取行动是否有助于我们实现项目目标，尤其是我们的体验目标？当你尝试评估问题和建议类别中的笔记时，这应该特别有用。你通常可以通过在离职面谈中向游戏测试员询问开放式问题来揭露隐藏问题的真实性质。

Once you’ve reviewed and sorted your notes, open up the document where you wrote down your project goals. For each note, ask yourself: would acting on this feedback help us meet our project goals, and our experience goal in particular? This should be particularly helpful when you’re trying to evaluate notes in the question and suggestion categories. You can often expose the true nature of hidden problems by asking a playtester open-ended questions about them in an exit interview.

请记住，虽然游戏测试员对游戏的评价非常有价值（无论是他们自言自语还是在离职面谈中谈论），但也可能具有误导性。玩家可能会误解他们为什么会以某种方式行事：也许是游戏中的某些东西误导了他们。这就是为什么仅仅观察玩家玩游戏是非常很重要。优秀的游戏设计师知道如何在玩家所说和所做之间进行推断，从而准确地描绘出游戏的运作方式。

Remember that while what playtesters say about the game is very valuable (whether they’re thinking out loud or talking in an exit interview), it can also be misleading. The player might misunderstand why they were acting in a certain way: perhaps something in the game was miscuing them. This is why simply watching players play is very important. Great game designers learn how to interpolate between what players say and what they do, to build up an accurate picture of how their game is working.

但是，当有人在游戏测试中难以玩好你的游戏时，一定要小心不要掉入陷阱。永远不要说“他们玩得不对”。这样说是对数字游戏设计的基本知识以及你作为游戏设计师的责任的误解。精心设计的数字游戏会教给玩家：有时是通过教程公开地教，有时是通过让玩家随意玩耍和探索来秘密地教。由于每个游戏的互动性，它们都赋予玩家在游戏限制内表达自己能动性的能力。如果你的玩家玩得不开心，那要么是因为你的设计有问题，要么是因为你的游戏不适合那个玩家。

However, be very wary of falling into a trap when someone struggles to play your game in a playtest. Never say, “They’re not playing it right.” To say this is to misunderstand something fundamental about digital game design, and about your responsibilities as a game designer. A well-designed digital game teaches itself to the player: sometimes overtly, through tutorials, and sometimes discreetly, by just letting the player mess around and make discoveries. Every game, because of its interactivity, empowers the player to express their agency within the constraints of the game. If your player isn’t having a good time, it’s either because of your design or because your game just isn’t right for that player.

你也应该克制住因为“他们就是不懂”而忽视游戏测试反馈的冲动。相反，你应该试着去理解他们为什么不懂。到底是缺少了什么或没有发挥作用，导致游戏测试者无法获得你希望他们拥有的那种体验？是游戏本身的问题还是玩家本身的问题？如果是后者，那么同样，并不是每个游戏都适合每个人，所有艺术和娱乐也是如此。但是太快说“他们就是不懂”是一个错误。在你忽视游戏测试者的反馈之前，一定要确保你已经从他们的反馈中了解到了所有你能了解到的信息。

You should also resist the urge to dismiss playtest feedback because “they just don’t get it.” Instead, try to understand why they’re not getting it. What is missing or not working that is preventing the playtester from having the kind of experience you want them to have? Is it something in the game or is it something in the player? If it’s the latter, then again, not every game is for every person, and the same is true for all art and entertainment. But saying “they just don’t get it” too quickly is a mistake. Be certain that you’ve learned everything you can from the feedback your playtesters give you before you dismiss it.

评估游戏测试反馈的一条基本原则是，我们必须抵制自我防御的冲动。你知道那种感觉：有人说了一些批评性的话——或者听起来像批评的话——你的情绪就会爆发。你会在心里大喊：“这太荒谬了！”然后开始在脑海里列出所有认为这是荒谬的理由。你认为你的理由是合理的，但当你事后回顾时，你会发现这些理由是多么的情绪化。

A cardinal rule for the evaluation of playtest feedback is that we must resist the impulse to become defensive. You know that feeling: someone says something critical—or that sounds like a criticism—and your feelings flare up. In your mind you yell, “That’s nonsense!” and you begin to make a mental list of all the reasons why it’s nonsense. You think that your reasons are rational, but when you look at them later you can see how skewed by emotion they were.

注意自己何时会变得防御性十足，在参与之前让自己冷静下来。睡一觉来听取反馈会很有帮助——与反馈保持一定距离可以帮助你更理性地评估批评。如果你在防御性十足的情况下试图谈论某个问题，你很快就会发现自己陷入了争论而不是讨论。

Notice when you get defensive and cool yourself down before you engage. It can be helpful to sleep on feedback—getting some distance from it can help you evaluate criticism more rationally. If you try to talk about an issue when you’re feeling defensive, you might soon find yourself in an argument rather than a discussion.

无论批评是否合理，面对批评时采取防御态度都是人类的祸害，无论是在工作、创作还是个人生活中。这会破坏人际关系，这对项目合作者来说是一个真正的问题。防御态度还会让我们无法获得建设性批评带来的智慧，而这些智慧可以帮助我们制作出优秀的游戏。

Becoming defensive in response to criticism—whether it’s reasonable or not—is the curse of many human endeavors, from our professional and creative lives to our personal lives. It can do damage to relationships, which is a real problem for people collaborating on a project. Defensiveness also denies us access to the wisdom that constructive criticism offers, wisdom that would help us to make our games excellent.

永远不要接受任何非建设性的批评——这些批评只会贬低或诋毁你的工作。远离破坏性的批评，在其他地方寻找我们在第 6 章中讨论过的那种有益且有用的建设性批评。

Don’t ever engage with any criticism that isn’t constructive—that just tears down or denigrates your work. Turn away from destructive criticism and look elsewhere for the kind of helpful and useful constructive criticism that we discussed in chapter 6.

当我尝试评估游戏测试反馈时，我发现最有用的方法就是与熟悉我游戏的人进行讨论。这个人可能是队友、同行或导师。只要听取关于某些有争议、令人不安或令人困惑的反馈的第二意见，通常就能立即弄清楚是否值得花更多时间研究它，或者我们是否可以安全地忽略它。

The thing I find most useful when I’m trying to evaluate playtest feedback is simply discussion with someone else who knows my game well. It could be a teammate, a peer, or a mentor. Just getting a second opinion about some contentious, troubling, or confusing piece of feedback will often immediately clarify whether it’s worth spending more time on or whether we can safely dismiss it.

“我喜欢，我希望，如果......？”

“I Like, I Wish, What If …?”

“我喜欢、我希望、如果……会怎样？”是一种有效反馈的技巧，由设计和咨询公司 IDEO 开发。它与我们在第 6 章中讨论的“夹层”有关。我从游戏设计师兼研究员丹尼斯·拉米雷斯那里学到了这种技巧，它是 USC 游戏计划的主要内容。设计师可以在测试彼此的作品时使用这种技巧，它适用于几乎任何主题的有效沟通，包括关于游戏开发过程或团队成员之间关系的讨论。

“I Like, I Wish, What If …?” is a technique for giving feedback effectively, developed by the design and consulting firm IDEO. It’s related to the “sandwiching” we discussed in chapter 6. I learned the technique from game designer and researcher Dennis Ramirez, and it’s a staple in the USC Games program. Designers can use this technique when they are playtesting each other’s work, and it works for effective communication about almost any subject, including discussions about game development process or relationships between team members.

“我喜欢，我希望，如果……会怎样？”技巧非常简单，几乎不需要任何解释。在审查了一些创意作品（可能是测试过游戏或查看过设计文档）后，我们会使用“我喜欢，我希望，如果……会怎样？”这样的短语来组织我们的反馈。例如：“我喜欢这个角色跳跃的游戏感觉——它在空中控制得很好。我希望他们在按下跳跃按钮时能更快地升到空中。如果你缩短或删除跳跃动画的开头会怎样？”

The “I Like, I Wish, What If …?” technique is so simple that it barely needs any explanation. Having reviewed some creative work—maybe having playtested a game, or looked over a design document—we frame our feedback using the phrase, “I Like, I Wish, What If …?” For example: “I like the game feel that this character’s jump has—it controls well in the air. I wish that they got up into the air a little more quickly when the jump button is pressed. What if you shortened or removed the beginning of the jump animation?”

通过“我喜欢”，我们可以表达出我们对作品的欣赏之处。就像夹心一样，这打开了沟通渠道，并建立了尊重和信任的基础。就像夹心一样，我们应该选择我们真正喜欢的东西，并花时间去思考它，这样我们交谈的人就会明白我们真的尊重他们，欣赏他们的工作。对于设计师来说，了解他们的设计中哪些地方是有效的也很有用。

With “I like,” we present something that we appreciated about the work. Just as in sandwiching, this opens the channels of communication and establishes a basis for respect and trust. As in sandwiching, we should choose something that we authentically like, and take the time to reflect on it, so that the person we’re talking to understands that we genuinely respect them and appreciate their work. It’s also useful for designers to hear what is working in their design.

然后，通过“我希望”，我们开始提出建设性的批评意见，说出我们希望我们所评论的内容有什么不同。我认为“我希望”是一个聪明的表述，因为它准确地将评论框定为一个人的观点，同时也表达了对作品欣赏的渴望。如果我们明白对方正在表达一种观点，也许我们就不太可能采取防御态度。“我希望”是一种积极的说法，“我希望它变得更好”，并且对设计师持续不断的迭代工作很有吸引力。

Then, with “I wish,” we begin to open up a line of constructive criticism, by saying what we would like to be different about what we are reviewing. I think that “I wish” is a clever formulation, because it accurately frames the comment as one person’s opinion, and also expresses a desire rooted in an appreciation of the work. If we understand that an opinion is being given, perhaps we’ll be less likely to get defensive. “I wish” is a positivistic way of saying, “I want this to be better,” and appeals to designers in their ongoing and iterative work.

最后，有了“如果……会怎样？”，我们就有机会提出建设性批评意见，提出一个可能实现我们愿望的想法。我们可能会提出一个问题的解决方案，或者建议一个不同的设计方向。说“如果……会怎样？”并向设计师提供我们自己的想法是一种慷慨的行为，也体现了我们希望得到的尊重和欣赏。也许设计师会选择接受我们的想法并在未来的迭代中尝试它。也许他们不会直接接受它，但它会给他们另一个被证明是正确的解决方案的想法。或者也许他们会拒绝它——它可能与他们的另一个设计目标或游戏机制相冲突。

Finally, with “What if …?” we have an opportunity to be constructively critical by offering an idea that might fulfill our wish. We might propose a solution to a problem or suggest a different design direction. Saying “What if …?” and offering one of our own ideas to a designer is a generous act, and one that underlines the respect and appreciation that hopefully are present. Maybe the designer will choose to accept our idea and try it out in a future iteration. Maybe they won’t accept it directly, but it will give them another idea that proves to be the right solution. Or maybe they’ll reject it—it might be in conflict with another of their design goals or game mechanics.

无论结果如何，“如果......会怎样？”是总结特定反馈的好方法；它为关于工作的对话开辟了空间，因为它很自然地促使接收反馈的设计师做出回应。

Whatever the outcome, “What if …?” is a good way to conclude a particular piece of feedback; it opens up room for a conversation about the work, since it very naturally prompts a response from the designer receiving the feedback.

发明这项技术的设计机构 IDEO 认识到沟通是设计流程的一个关键方面，如果我们的设计想要成功，我们就需要很好地相处——即使在艰难的对话中也是如此。斯坦福设计学院Bootcamp Bootleg的作者说：

IDEO, the design agency that created this technique, recognizes that communication is a key aspect of the design process, and that we need to get along well together—even during difficult conversations—if our designs are going to turn out well. The authors of the Stanford Design School Bootcamp Bootleg say:

在设计工作中，设计师依赖个人沟通，尤其是反馈。您向用户征求有关解决方案概念的反馈，并向同事寻求有关您正在开发的设计框架的反馈。在项目本身之外，其他设计师需要交流他们如何作为一个团队一起工作。反馈最好用“我”语句来给出。例如，“我有时觉得你不听我说话”，而不是“你不听我说一句话”。具体来说，“我喜欢、我希望、如果”（IL/IW/WI）是一种鼓励开放式反馈的简单工具^。11

Designers rely on personal communication and, particularly, feedback, during design work. You request feedback from users about your solution concepts, and you seek feedback from colleagues about design frameworks you are developing. Outside the project itself, fellow designers need to communicate how they are working together as a team. Feedback is best given with I-statements. For example, “I sometimes feel you don’t listen to me” instead of “You don’t listen to a word I say.” Specifically, “I like, I wish, What if” (IL/IW/WI) is a simple tool to encourage open feedback.¹¹

所以，试试“我喜欢、我希望、如果……会怎样？”，看看效果如何。这是一个简单但复杂的工具，可以让你成为更有效的沟通者，并帮助在团队中营造一种尊重和信任的环境。

So try “I Like, I Wish, What If …?” and see how it works for you. It’s a simple but sophisticated tool for becoming a more effective communicator, and for helping to create an environment of respect and trust on a team.

设计师和艺术家的游戏测试

Playtesting for Designers and Artists

艺术与设计之间的区别很有趣。许多有创造力的人既是设计师又是艺术家，设计的实用性和艺术的超越性之间的界限充其量是模糊的，甚至不存在。例如，设计精美的字体当然值得我们视为艺术品，许多当代艺术博物馆都收藏设计作品。

The distinction between art and design is an interesting one. Many creative people are both designers and artists, and the boundary between the utility of design and the transcendence of art is blurry at best or even nonexistent. A beautifully designed typeface, for example, certainly seems to warrant our consideration as a work of art, and many contemporary art museums house design collections.

艺术创作中存在这样一种态度：“这是我的作品：我不需要解释或证明它。”但当代艺术家似乎越来越关心他们的作品如何与人们产生共鸣。设计和艺术越来越多地参与社会倡导、政治活动和道德干预。在她的书《设计作为一种态度》中，设计评论家爱丽丝·罗斯索恩强调诚信是“一个不可谈判的要素她说，“如果我们对一个设计项目的任何方面——从开发、测试、制造到分销、销售、营销……——的伦理或生态影响感到不舒服，我们就不太可能认为它是可取的。” ¹²除此之外，艺术还可以通过强调不公正和建议更公平的未来来影响世界的积极变化。

There’s a place in artmaking for an attitude of “This is my work: I do not need to explain or justify it.” But contemporary artists seem increasingly interested in the ways that their work lands with people. Design and art are increasingly engaging in social advocacy, political activism, and ethical intervention. In her book Design as an Attitude, design critic Alice Rawsthorn highlights integrity as “a nonnegotiable ingredient of desirable design.” She says, “If we have any reason to feel uncomfortable about the ethical or ecological implications of any aspect of a design project—from its development, testing, and manufacturing, to distribution, sales, marketing … we are unlikely to find it desirable.”¹² Beyond that, art has opportunities to effect positive change in the world by highlighting injustice and suggesting more equitable futures.

我希望大家清楚，游戏测试作为游戏设计过程的一部分具有很大的实用性，无论我们设计的游戏是娱乐性、趣味性、艺术性还是受影响相关考虑驱动。但我希望本书中描述的实践（包括游戏测试）不仅仅对游戏设计师、交互设计师和体验设计师有用。我希望它们对所有类型的艺术家都同样有用，并通过促进艺术家和观众之间更深层次的联系，引领更丰富、更全面的创作实践。

I hope it’s clear that playtesting has great utility as part of a game design process, whether we’re designing a game that is entertaining, interesting, artistic, or driven by impact-related considerations. But I hope that the practices described in this book, including playtesting, are not just useful for game designers, interaction designers, and experience designers. I hope that they will prove equally useful to artists of all kinds, and will lead toward a richer, fuller creative practice, by fostering a deeper connection between artist and audience.

2. 1. Tanya X. Short，“如何以及何时让你的程序性可被玩家识别”，2018 年游戏用户体验峰会，https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=r6rTMGFXktI 。

3. 1.  Tanya X. Short, “How and When to Make Your Procedurality Player-Legible,” Game UX Summit 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6rTMGFXktI.

4. 2 . 诺曼，《设计日常事物》，32。

5. 2.  Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 32.

6. 3 . 诺曼，《设计日常事物》，32。

7. 3.  Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 32.

8. 4 . 诺曼，《设计日常事物》，32。

9. 4.  Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 32.

10. 5 . Swink，游戏感觉，50。

11. 5.  Swink, Game Feel, 50.

12. 6 . 诺曼，《设计日常事物》，32。

13. 6.  Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 32.

14. 7.诺曼，《设计日常事物》，第十五卷。

15. 7.  Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, xv.

16. 8. Alissa McAloon，“为了获得有意义的反馈，你应该问游戏测试员的 5 个问题”，Gamasutra，2016 年 10 月 10 日，https: //www.gamasutra.com/view/news/283044/5_questions_you_should_be_asking_playtesters_to_get_meaningful_feedback.php 。

17. 8.  Alissa McAloon, “5 Questions You Should Be Asking Playtesters to Get Meaningful Feedback,” Gamasutra, October 10, 2016, https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/283044/5_questions_you_should_be_asking_playtesters_to_get_meaningful_feedback.php.

18. 9.私人通信，2020年5月10日。

19. 9.  Private communication, May 10, 2020.

20. 10 . Frederick，《我在建筑学校学到的 101 件事》，81。

21. 10.  Frederick, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, 81.

22. 11. Thomas Both 和 Dave Baggeroer，《设计思维训练营 Bootleg》，2020 年 12 月 10 日访问，https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/the-bootcamp-bootleg。

23. 11.  Thomas Both and Dave Baggeroer, “Design Thinking Bootcamp Bootleg,” accessed December 10, 2020, https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/the-bootcamp-bootleg.

24. 12 . Rawsthorn，《设计作为一种态度》，123。

25. 12.  Rawsthorn, Design as an Attitude, 123.

宇宙为何有层级结构——一个寓言

Why the Universe Is Organized into Hierarchies—a Fable

曾经有两位钟表匠，一个叫霍拉，一个叫坦普斯。他们两人都制作精美的手表，都拥有众多客户。人们光顾他们的商店，他们的电话不断响起，有新订单。然而，多年来，霍拉生意兴隆，而坦普斯却变得越来越穷。这是因为霍拉发现了等级制度的原理。…

There once were two watchmakers, named Hora and Tempus. Both of them made fine watches, and they both had many customers. People dropped into their stores, and their phones rang constantly with new orders. Over the years, however, Hora prospered, while Tempus slowly became poorer and poorer. That’s because Hora discovered the principle of hierarchy.…

Hora 和 Tempus 制作的手表每只都由大约一千个零件组成。Tempus 组装手表的方式是，如果他将一块手表的一部分组装好，然后放下它（比如说接电话），它就会散架。当他回来时，Tempus 必须从头再来。他的客户给他打电话越多，他就越难找到足够的时间来完成一只手表。

霍拉的手表并不比坦帕斯的手表复杂，但她组装了大约十个元件的稳定组件。然后她将其中十个组件组装成一个更大的组件；而这十个组件则构成了整块手表。每当霍拉不得不放下一块半成品手表去接电话时，她只会损失一小部分工作。因此，她制造手表的速度比坦帕斯快得多，效率也高得多。

^{只有存在稳定的中间形式，复杂系统才能从简单系统演化而来。由此产生的复杂形式自然会是层次化的。}这或许可以解释为什么层次结构在自然界呈现给我们的系统中如此常见。在所有可能的复杂形式中，只有层次结构才有时间演化。1

The watches made by both Hora and Tempus consisted of about one thousand parts each. Tempus put his together in such a way that if he had one partly assembled and had to put it down—to answer the phone, say—it fell to pieces. When he came back to it, Tempus would have to start all over again. The more his customers phoned him, the harder it became for him to find enough uninterrupted time to finish a watch.

Hora’s watches were no less complex than those of Tempus, but she put together stable subassemblies of about ten elements each. Then she put ten of these subassemblies together into a larger assembly; and ten of those assemblies constituted the whole watch. Whenever Hora had to put down a partly completed watch to answer the phone, she lost only a small part of her work. So she made her watches much faster and more efficiently than did Tempus.

Complex systems can evolve from simple systems only if there are stable intermediate forms. The resulting complex forms will naturally be hierarchic. That may explain why hierarchies are so common in the systems nature presents to us. Among all possible complex forms, hierarchies are the only ones that have had the time to evolve.¹

什么是同心发展？

What Is Concentric Development?

同心开发是一种游戏开发策略，它帮助我们找到大多数游戏开发者面临的许多难题的解决方案。为了制作这款游戏​​，我们想实现很多目标，但是：

Concentric development is a game development strategy that helps us find solutions to a number of difficult problems that most game developers face. We have a long list of things we want to implement to make this game, but:

• 我们应该按照什么顺序建造它们？
• What order should we build them in?
• 这是我们使这个游戏变得出色的正确清单吗？
• Is this even the right list of things we need to make this game great?
• 如果其中一些事情的完成时间比我们想象的要长得多，会发生什么？（在游戏开发中，我们所创造的大多数东西的完成时间都比我们想象的要长得多，这是因为我们有隐藏的假设、出错的事情、技能的限制、工具的限制或时间上的意外限制，比如生病和缺勤一周。）
• What happens if some of these things take a lot longer to build than we think? (In game development, most of what we create will take a lot longer to build than we think, because of hidden assumptions we have, things that go wrong, limits on our skill, limits in the tools, or unexpected limits on our time, like getting sick and missing a week of work.)
• 如果我们需要根据游戏测试或其他反馈做出重大更改，该怎么办？
• What happens if we need to make major changes based on playtesting or other feedback?
• 游戏最后会完整吗？如果我们的时间不够，我们所有的碎片还能拼凑成一个连贯的整体吗？
• Is the game going to come together at the end? If we run out of time, are all the pieces that we have going to knit together into a coherent whole?

我第一次听到“同心开发”这个术语是在 2002 年左右，当时我正在与 Crystal Dynamics 当时的工作室负责人 John Spinale 交谈。John 如今最为人所知的身份是 JAZZ Venture Partners 的执行合伙人兼联合创始人，并且拥有媒体和娱乐技术领域的投资者和企业家背景。

I first heard the term concentric development during a conversation with Crystal Dynamics’ then–studio head John Spinale, sometime around 2002. John is best known today as managing partner and cofounder of JAZZ Venture Partners and has a background as an investor and entrepreneur in media and entertainment technology.

有一天，我和约翰讨论了开发游戏的健康方法，以及先构建游戏的核心元素然后再向外扩展的有效性。我发现这种方法在我接触过的许多最聪明的团队中效果很好，约翰主动说他称之为同心开发。当我来到顽皮狗时，我发现他们也采用这种方式，而且已经这样做了很多年。

One day, John and I were discussing healthy approaches to building games, and how effective it is to build the core elements of a game first and then work outward. I had seen this working well as a best practice of many of the smartest teams I’d come into contact with, and John volunteered that he called this concentric development. When I got to Naughty Dog, I discovered that they too worked in this way and had been doing so for years.

以同心方式开发游戏是什么意思？让我们先从基本定义开始。同心意味着从中心开始，向外延伸到围绕并支撑该中心的事物。

What does it mean to develop games in a concentric way? Let’s start with a basic definition. Concentric means starting at the center and working outward to the things that surround and support that center.

想象一下城堡正中央的一座主楼，统治者和财富都隐藏在这里，四周环绕着一层层的幕墙、护城河和路障，如图13.1所示。当我们以中心思想进行开发时，我们将首先建造主楼，以确保我们拥有值得周围事物支撑的东西。这意味着实现游戏的基本元素首先，然后不断完善它们，直到它们完成。这些基本的游戏元素有时被开发人员称为游戏的主要机制。

Think about a keep, the structure in the very center of a castle, where the rulers and riches are hidden away, surrounded by successive layers of curtain walls, moats, and barricades, as shown in figure 13.1. As we develop concentrically, we’re going to build the keep first, to make sure that we have something worthy of support by the things that surround it. That means implementing the fundamental elements of the game first and working on them until they are complete. These fundamental game elements are sometimes referred to by developers as the primary mechanics of the game.

首先实现主要机制，直到它们完成

Implement Primary Mechanics First until They Are Complete

我们很容易将游戏的主要机制视为构成我们在第 10 章中讨论的核心循环的游戏元素。但是，当我们谈论同心开发时，考虑比核心循环中的元素更小的元素集并真正关注游戏中一两个最基本的机制是很有用的。

It’s tempting to think of a game’s primary mechanics as the game elements that make up the core loop that we discussed in chapter 10. But when we’re talking about concentric development, it’s useful to consider an even smaller set of elements than those in the core loop, and to really focus in the one or two most fundamental mechanics in the game.

对于玩家直接控制玩家角色的游戏，角色、摄像头和仅与运动相关的控件为我们展示主要机制的清晰图景。这可能是：

For games with a player-character that is directly controlled by the player, the three Cs of character, camera, and only the controls that relate to movement give us a good picture of the primary mechanics. This could be:

• 第一人称游戏中的移动和摄像头的控制。
• The controls for movement and camera in a first-person game.
• 在横向滚动点击冒险游戏中移动玩家角色和摄像机的算法。
• The algorithms to move the player-character and camera around in a side-scrolling point-and-click adventure.
• 在第三人称动作游戏中移动玩家角色和摄像机的控制。
• The controls to move the player-character and camera around in a third-person action game.

对于没有玩家角色的游戏，我通常会查看玩家直接互动的机制，以帮助我确定游戏的主要机制。这些机制可能是：

For games without a player-character, I usually look at the mechanics that the player is directly interacting with to help me determine the game’s primary mechanics. These could be:

• 在实时战略游戏中，围绕地图移动摄像机视图，以及简单的点击交互机制。
• Moving the camera view around a map, and a single, simple click-to-interact mechanic, in a real-time strategy game.
• 益智游戏中最常用的单一交互。
• The most commonly used single interaction in a puzzle game.
• 文字冒险中的文本解析器的基础知识。
• The basics of the text parser in a text adventure.

由您，设计师，来决定您正在构建的游戏的主要机制。选择您认为能为您的游戏玩法提供坚实基础的任何机制。确定主要机制通常不太难。例如，在《俄罗斯方块》中，主要机制包括一个不断下落直到停在屏幕底部的四格骨牌，以及可以左右移动它以及可以顺时针和逆时针旋转它的能力。对于《模拟城市》来说，它可能是铺设道路瓷砖、建筑瓷砖或分区的能力。对于《模拟人生》来说，也许只是一个模拟市民在房间里走动并与环境中的单个物体互动。对于《热舞革命》来说，它可能只是主游戏循环中最简单的部分：一个节拍沿着轨道向您袭来，当它到达屏幕底部时，您可以踩踏垫子（或按下按钮）。

It’s up to you, the designer, to determine what the primary mechanics are for the game you’re building. Choose whatever you think will provide a solid foundation for your gameplay. It’s usually not too hard to figure out your primary mechanics. For example, in Tetris, the primary mechanics consist of a tetromino that is falling until it comes to rest at the bottom of the screen, and the ability to move it left and right and to rotate it clockwise and counterclockwise. For SimCity, it could be the ability to lay either a road tile, a building tile, or a zoning area. For The Sims, perhaps it’s just a single Sim walking around a room and interacting with a single object in the environment. For Dance Dance Revolution, it might be just the simplest part of the main game loop: a beat coming down a track toward you, and the ability to stamp on a pad (or press a button) just as it reaches the bottom of the screen.

同心开发理念的核心是，我们不会像制作原型时那样，把这些主要机制拼凑在一起。相反，我们会花时间进行完善，直到它们完善为止。这意味着要制作成品艺术、动画、音效和视觉效果，并将它们与优秀的游戏设计和代码结合在一起。

Central to the philosophy of concentric development is the idea that we don’t just slap these primary mechanics together, as we would do when we are prototyping. Instead, we take the time to work on them until they are complete and polished. That means creating finished art, animation, sound effects, and visual effects, and knitting them all together with good game design and code.

对于有玩家角色的游戏，需要实现很多功能才能将角色、摄像机和移动控件引入游戏。对于 2D 游戏，我们必须设计一个角色并创建静止和移动的动画帧。对于 3D 游戏，我们必须为玩家角色构建模型、为其添加纹理、装配，并创建静止、行走或奔跑的动画。我们必须连接游戏的控件，以便我们的输入导致游戏中的移动，并且我们必须创建摄像机控制算法。对于没有玩家角色的游戏，在创建艺术和动画资产以及为控件和摄像机设置它们方面也需要做类似的工作。

For a game with a player-character, there’s a lot to implement to get character, camera, and controls for movement into the game. For a 2D game, we have to design a character and create frames of animation for idling and movement. For a 3D game, we have to build a model for the player-character, texture it, rig it, and create animations for idling and walking or running. We have to hook up the game’s controls so that our inputs result in movement in the game, and we have to create camera control algorithms. For games without player-characters, there’s similar work to do in creating art and animation assets and setting them up for controls and camera.

即使如此，如果我们以中心方式进行开发，我们仍然没有完成。我们还必须完成主要机制的声音设计和视觉效果设计。对于有玩家角色的游戏，我们需要添加脚步声的音频，也许还需要添加视觉效果，比如脚步声扬起的尘土。如果我们角色的某个部位发光，我们需要设置随其移动的光源。如果角色皮肤或衣服的某些方面具有不寻常或独特的外观，我们可能需要在角色模型上使用特殊着色器。

Even then, we’re still not done if we’re developing concentrically. We must also complete the sound design and visual effects design for the primary mechanics. For a game with a player-character, we’ll need to add audio for footsteps, and perhaps visual effects, like puffs of dust thrown up by the footsteps. If some part of our character emits light, we’ll need to set up light sources that move with them. We might need special shaders on the character model, if some aspect of their skin or clothes has an unusual or distinctive appearance.

此外，我们需要为主要机制构建一些背景。对于有玩家角色的游戏，这通常是站立和走动的地方。我们可以创建一个块网格（白盒/灰盒/块状）测试级别来实现此目的。如果有时间，最好创建一些背景图形，这些图形代表游戏发行时一小部分的外观，并可能制作一个我们在第 10 章中讨论过的“美丽角落”。

In addition, we’ll need to build some context for our primary mechanics. For games with a player-character, this is usually a place to stand and to walk around in. We could just create a blockmesh (whitebox/graybox/blockout) test level to serve this purpose. If we have time, it’s better to create some background graphics that are representative of what a small part of our game might look like when it ships, and to maybe make a “beautiful corner” of the kind we discussed in chapter 10.

再次强调，使用同心开发，我们不会开始实现任何次要机制，直到主要机制完成到很好的完善程度，并且我们对其设计进行了迭代，改进了控制、动画和游戏感觉，直到这一小组主要机制可以发布（好到可以发布）。次要机制需要坚实的基础作为支撑，如果它们基于尚未完成的主要机制，则无法得到适当的评估。等待完善每个机制的时间越长，不确定性程度就越大，整体设计就越不稳定。正如游戏设计师 George Kokoris 曾经对我说过的那样，在主要机制完全完成之前实现次要机制“就像在地基未干之前就砌墙一样。”

Again, using concentric development, we don’t start implementing any secondary mechanics until the primary mechanics are completed to a good degree of polish and we’ve iterated on their design, improving the controls, animation, and game feel until this small group of primary mechanics is shippable (good enough to be released). Secondary mechanics need a solid foundation to rest on and can’t be evaluated properly if they’re based on primary mechanics that are still unfinished. The longer you wait to polish each mechanic, the more degrees of uncertainty creep in, and the less stable your overall design becomes. As the game designer George Kokoris once said to me, to implement secondary mechanics before the primary mechanics are properly finished would be “like putting up walls before the foundation has dried.”

一旦我们完成了主要机制的实现，我们就可以通过同心机制层次向外进行工作，实现和迭代次要机制，然后再实现和迭代三级机制。

Once we have finished implementing the primary mechanics, we can work outward through a concentric hierarchy of mechanics, implementing and iterating on secondary mechanics and then on tertiary mechanics.

实施二次力学和三次力学

Implementing Secondary Mechanics and Tertiary Mechanics

我认为次要机制是游戏中最重要的一两个玩家活动或动词。这些动词通常是完成游戏核心循环的动词。对于有玩家角色的游戏，这些动词最常见的是：

I think of secondary mechanics as the one or two most important player activities or verbs of the game. These are often the verbs that complete the core loop of the game. For games with a player-character, these would most commonly be:

• 在一款有关穿越的游戏中跳跃和攀爬。
• Jumping and climbing in a game about traversal.
• 战斗类游戏中的主要战斗动作。
• The main combat actions in a game about combat.
• 在叙事游戏中与其他角色交谈。
• Speaking with other characters in a narrative game.

对于没有玩家角色的游戏，这些可能是：

For games without a player-character, these might be:

• 在实时战略游戏中选择和创建建筑物和单位。
• Selecting and creating buildings and units in a real-time strategy game.
• 使完成益智游戏中的关卡成为可能的机制。
• The mechanics that make it possible to complete a level in a puzzle game.
• 文本冒险中的文本解析器和文本呈现的高级方面。
• Advanced aspects of the text parser and text presentation in a text adventure.

我们实施、迭代并完成每个次级机制的所有相关艺术、动画、音频设计、视觉效果、控件和算法，使它们达到可发布的完善水平。我们以这种方式逐个完成每个次级机制，直到它们全部完成。然后（也只有这样）我们才能继续实施和迭代我们的第三级（第三级）机制。

We implement, iterate on, and complete all the associated art, animation, audio design, visual effects, controls, and algorithms for each of our secondary mechanics, bringing them to a ready-to-ship level of polish. We work through each of our secondary mechanics in this way, one at a time, until they’re all complete. Then (and only then) we can move on to implementing and iterating on our tertiary (third level) mechanics.

这些第三级机制将构成我们游戏机制的“下一层”。它们通常在某种程度上依赖于主要和次要机制，并充实游戏的设计。可能需要实现一长串机制。对于具有玩家角色的游戏，它们与玩家可以与之互动的所有内容相关：敌人和友方角色、工具和武器、开关和门、宝藏和陷阱。根据游戏的设计，您可以继续创建游戏机制的层次结构，直至四级、五级和六级（第四、第五和第六级）机制，每个层级都依赖于其上一层级的机制。

These tertiary mechanics will make up the “next layer out” of our game’s mechanics. They are usually dependent on the primary and secondary mechanics in some way, and they flesh out the game’s design. There will probably be a long list of them to implement. For a game with a player-character, they relate to everything that the player can interact with in the world: characters both enemy and friendly, tools and weapons, switches and doors, treasures and traps. Depending on your game’s design, you could continue creating a hierarchy of game mechanics, down through quaternary, quinary, and senary (fourth, fifth, and sixth level) mechanics, each tier being dependent on the mechanics in the tier above it.

只在对游戏设计有用的情况下才这么做。你可能（理所当然地）怀疑层级思维过于简单甚至令人压抑，而且有些游戏的机制可能没有任何层级结构，尽管它们可能仍然是模块化的。目标是以合理的顺序实现游戏机制，始终将事情完成到良好的水平，从可以为游戏提供基础的东西开始。

Only take this as far as is useful for your game’s design. You may (rightfully) be suspicious of hierarchical thinking as simplistic and even oppressive, and the mechanics of some games might not have any hierarchical structure, though they will likely still be modular. The goal is to implement your game’s mechanics in a rational order, always bringing things to a good level of completion, working outward from something that can provide the foundations of your game.

同心开发和设计参数

Concentric Development and Design Parameters

我们玩的许多游戏在设计中都内置了某种设计参数，比如游戏设计师用来规划关卡的空间（有时也是时间）中的隐形网格。例如，玩家角色有多高？他们能水平和垂直跳多远？当他们挥拳或伸手拉杠杆时，他们能向前跳多远？

Many of the games we play have some kind of design parameters built into their design, like an invisible grid in space (sometimes also in time) that game designers use to plan their levels well. For example, how tall is the player-character? How far can they jump, both horizontally and vertically? When they throw a punch or reach out to pull a lever, how far forward can they reach?

在 2D 或 3D 平台游戏中，关卡中平台的放置位置与玩家角色可以跳跃的距离有着至关重要的关系。如果平台之间的距离过远，玩家将无法从一个平台跳到另一个平台。游戏设计师有时会花很长时间布置关卡，然后又改变主意，决定玩家角色可以跳多远。也许他们已经决定他们想让玩家角色看起来更强大一些，所以他们增加了跳跃的高度和水平距离。突然间，玩家可以轻松跳到以前无法到达的地方，并且可以跳过精心设计的游戏玩法的整个部分。然后设计师必须重新开始关卡布局的艰巨任务。

In a 2D or 3D platform game, the placement of the platforms in a level has a critical relationship with the distances that the player-character can jump. Place the platforms too far apart, and the player won’t be able to jump from one to the next. Game designers will sometimes spend a long time laying out their levels and then change their minds about how far they want the player-character to jump. Perhaps they’ve decided that they want to make their player-character look a little more superpowered, and so they extend the height and the horizontal distance of the jump. Suddenly, the player can easily jump to places that were previously inaccessible and can skip past whole sections of carefully designed gameplay. The designer then has to start over with the gargantuan task of level layout.

这个常见问题为同心式开发提供了非常清晰的论据。在我们继续构建我们希望的游戏最终关卡之前，必须牢牢锁定游戏机制的设计参数（决定其基本属性的测量值）。使用同心式开发可以帮助我们在走得太远之前弄清楚游戏设计的这些重要方面。

This commonly encountered problem makes a very clear argument for concentric development. The design parameters of our game’s mechanics—the measurements that determine their fundamental properties—must be locked in firmly before we move on to build what we hope are the final levels of our game. Using concentric development helps us figure out these important aspects of our game’s design before we move too far ahead.

测试级别

Test Levels

在预生产期间，创建 blockmesh 测试关卡，您可以使用它来调整游戏的设计参数并检查游戏机制。团队中的任何人都可以在测试关卡中奔跑、跳跃和攀爬，以尝试游戏机制并完善他们正在开发的内容。

During preproduction, create blockmesh test levels that you can use to dial in your game’s design parameters and check over your mechanics. Anyone on the team can run, jump, and climb around in the test level to try out the mechanics and polish whatever they’re working on.

在角色动作类电子游戏中（例如《神秘海域》系列游戏），移动机制测试关卡包含箱子、坡道、可抓取的壁架和绳索。这些元素以网格形式排列，显示它们在游戏中可能具有的空间关系。例如，我们会放置一些箱子供玩家跳跃，箱子之间的间隙为 1.5 米、2 米、2.5 米、3 米等等。您可以想象其他类型的游戏机制和其他游戏类型的测试关卡。

In a character-action videogame (like the games in the Uncharted series), a traversal mechanic test level contains boxes, ramps, grabbable ledges, and ropes. These elements are laid out in grids showing the possible spatial relationships that they might have in the game. For example, we would place boxes to jump between, with gaps between them of 1.5 meters, 2 meters, 2.5 meters, 3 meters, and so on. You can imagine test levels for other types of game mechanic and other genres of game.

这些测试关卡可以用作实验室或健身房，在我们制作垂直切片时微调和确认游戏的设计参数。它们还可用于我们制作游戏感觉和游戏机制的趣味性（第 22 章中介绍）。它们帮助我们决定不同元素排列的趣味性和难度。重要的是，它们还帮助我们检测代码中是否出现问题，以及我们的设计参数是否在我们不知情的情况下发生轻微变化——例如，如果玩家角色现在可以跳过 6.1 米而不是 6 米的间隙，从而破坏游戏。

These test levels can be used as a lab or gym to fine-tune and confirm our game’s design parameters as we work on our vertical slice. They can also be used as we work on the game feel and juiciness of our game’s mechanics (described in chapter 22). They help us decide the degree of fun and difficulty of different arrangements of elements. Importantly, they also help us detect if something goes wrong somewhere in the code and our design parameters change slightly without our knowing—for example, if the player-character can now jump across a gap of 6.1 meters rather than 6, breaking the game.

边抛光边使用

Polish as You Go

在电影和戏剧界，制作价值是指一部作品在舞台、布景和外观上所花费的金钱的质量。（我认为，这更多的是花在这些事情上的精力，而不仅仅是金钱。）我们也可以将制作价值这一术语应用于游戏，谈论图形和音频设计的质量、视觉效果和灯光，甚至是隆隆作响的振动控制器或手机的触觉设计。当你制作原型时，制作价值通常并不重要，但是它们对垂直部分来说很重要。在垂直部分中，实现良好生产价值的快速途径是边做边打磨，以同心圆的方式工作，分阶段完成和打磨所有内容，从主要机制到次要机制再到第三机制。

In the world of film and theater, production value is the quality of a production in terms of the money spent on its staging, set, and appearance. (I’d argue that it’s more the attention spent on these things, rather than just the money.) We can apply the term production value to games, too, to talk about the quality of the graphics and audio design, the visual effects and lighting, even the haptic design of the rumbling, vibrating controller or phone. When you’re prototyping, production values usually don’t matter much, but they do matter for a vertical slice. A quick path to good production values in a vertical slice is to polish as you go, working concentrically, completing and polishing everything in stages, working from primary to secondary to tertiary mechanics.

正如加州大学洛杉矶分校传奇篮球教练约翰·伍登 (John Wooden) 所说：“如果你没有时间把事情做好，那你什么时候有时间重新做一遍？” ²

As the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden is quoted as saying: “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”²

不要使用默认值

Don’t Use Defaults

在进行垂直切片时，请使用同心开发，并从一开始就做好构建的一切。使用灯光和声音来营造一种令人回味的时间、地点和情绪感。如果可以在几秒钟内将其更改为您特意选择的设置，请不要将游戏的任何方面保留为游戏引擎提供的默认设置。这尤其适用于天空盒或相机背景的设置以及环境照明设置。优秀的设计师不会使用默认值。快速更改默认值以为您塑造的世界做出贡献，构建上下文，传达信息或提供互动机会。

As you work on your vertical slice, use concentric development and make everything you build good from the get-go. Use light and sound to create an evocative sense of time, place, and mood. Don’t leave any aspect of your game set to the defaults provided by your game engine, if they can be changed in a few seconds to something deliberately chosen by you. This particularly applies to the settings for the skybox or the camera background, and to the ambient lighting settings. Good designers don’t use defaults. Quickly change default values to contribute something to the world you’re shaping, to build context, convey information, or offer opportunities for interaction.

波兰人也可以很朋克

Polish Can Be Punk

认为“精致”或“可交付”必然等同于“华而不实”、“高保真”、“平淡无奇”或“无聊”是错误的。我一直批评游戏行业过去依赖照片写实主义而非风格。幸运的是，事情正在向好的方向发展，我们看到当今电子游戏的视觉美学有了更多的变化、风格化和实验性。美感和趣味性并非来自高端计算性能——它们来自于使用手头的任何工具来表达美丽而有趣的东西。

It’s a mistake to think that “polished” or “shippable” necessarily equates to “slick,” “high-fidelity,” “bland,” or “boring.” I’ve been critical of the game industry’s historical reliance on photorealism over style. Happily, things are changing for the better, and we see a lot more variation, stylization, and experimentation in the visual aesthetics of videogames today. Beauty and interest don’t come from high-end computational performance—they come from having something beautiful and interesting to express, using whatever tools are at hand.

根据我的定义，精致的游戏不必看起来光鲜亮丽或整洁有序。它们可以是粗糙、松散、粗糙、故障多多、模糊或黯淡无光的。我们这一代人会称之为朋克美学。你会为那些通过拒绝主流美学来表达艺术、社会或政治观点的风格命名。我相信朋克风格仍然可以精致。也许“精心制作”、“精心制作”或“精心加工”是更好的术语。

By my definition, polished games don’t have to look shiny or tidy. They can be rough, loose, abrasive, glitchy, blurry, or tarnished. People of my generation would call this a punk aesthetic. You’ll have your own names for styles that make artistic, social, or political statements by rejecting mainstream aesthetics. I believe that punk styles can still be polished. Maybe “worked,” “crafted,” or “tooled” are better terms.

经过长时间的精心制作，由人或机器经过多次系统化流程创作的艺术作品，通常具有难以言表但易于识别的特殊品质。它有深度和趣味性。人们的注意力已经投入其中，吸引并留住了其他人的注意力。因此，在艺术和音频的第一次实现之后，请进行第二次、第三次或第四次迭代。这通常是关键内容出现的时候。

Artwork that has been worked and crafted over time, created by many iterations of systemic process at the hands of a person or a machine, often has a special quality that’s hard to name but easy to recognize. It has depth and interest. Attention has gone into it, drawing and holding attention from others. So, go beyond your first implementation of your art and audio, to the second, third, or fourth iteration. That’s usually when the vital stuff arrives.

同心开发、模块化和系统

Concentric Development, Modularity, and Systems

您可能已经意识到，当我们进行同心开发时，我们正在以模块化的方式构建游戏。模块是更大或更复杂系统的组成部分。大多数电子游戏都是模块化的，无论我们考虑的是游戏的实体和规则，还是编写游戏的代码。正如游戏设计师、程序员和架构师都知道的那样，创作过程越能适应最终结果的模块化，创作过程就越高效，并且（通常，但并非总是）结果也会越好。

You might already have realized that when we practice concentric development, we are building our games in a modular way. A module is a component of a larger or more complex system. Most videogames are modular, whether we’re considering the game’s entities and rules or the code in which the game is written. As game designers, programmers, and architects all know, the more that a creative process can be adapted to honor the modularity of the end result, the more efficient the creative process will be, and (usually, though not always) the better the outcome will be too.

我认为，如果不实施所有细节，就无法真正评估数字游戏或交互式媒体，因为细节在很大程度上决定了游戏是否成功。记住工业设计师 Ray 和 Charles Eames 的建议：“细节不是细节。它们成就了产品。” ³想想为创造良好的游戏感觉和趣味性而进行的所有细致工作。很明显，在游戏设计中，就像在所有设计中一样，每一个细节都很重要，会影响观众对作品的理解、感知和欣赏。即使是一个产生负面影响的小细节也会破坏整个体验。这个想法的一个生动（且极其恶心）的例子是“你介意在汤里放多少便便？”

It’s my belief that you can’t truly evaluate a digital game or a piece of interactive media without all of its details having been implemented, because the details inform so much of what makes a game work or not. Remember industrial designers Ray and Charles Eames’s advice that “the details are not the details. They make the product.”³ Think about all the detailed work that goes into creating good game feel and juiciness. It seems clear that in game design, as in all design, every last detail matters, impacting the audience’s understanding, perception, and appreciation of the work. Even a single minor detail that has a negative impact can spoil the whole experience. One colorful (and profoundly gross) example of this idea is the saying, “How much poop do you mind having in your soup?”

本章开头的钟表匠寓言清楚地说明了以模块化方式构建的好处。如果我们以模块方式构建，我们可以为我们的项目创建稳定的中间形式，使我们能够尽早完成诸如测试（然后迭代）游戏的一小部分之类的事情，而不必等到最后才知道我们所做的是否有效。

The benefits of building in a modular way are made clear by the parable about watchmakers at the start of this chapter. If we build in modules, we can create stable intermediate forms for our project that empower us to do things like test (and then iterate on) a small part of the game early, rather than having to wait until the end to see whether what we’ve made is working.

在他的著作《高级游戏设计：系统方法》中，游戏设计师兼教育家 Michael Sellers 为我们提供了一些额外的背景信息，以帮助我们理解模块化在游戏设计中的重要性。他引入了亚稳态的概念，即“稳定但总是在变化”。他说：“亚稳态的东西通常以稳定的形式存在于整个时间中，但在较低的组织水平上总是在变化。” ⁴ Mike 继续说道：

In his book Advanced Game Design: A Systems Approach, game designer and educator Michael Sellers gives us some extra context for understanding the importance of modularity in game design. He introduces the concept of metastability, which means “stable but always changing.” He says, “Something that is metastable exists in a stable form across time (typically) but is nevertheless always changing at a lower level of organization.”⁴ Mike goes on to say:

协同作用这个词的意思是“共同努力”。它……最初是由巴克敏斯特·富勒引入现代用法的，他将其描述为“整个系统的行为无法通过其各部分单独行为来预测”（富勒 1975 年）。这是描述亚稳态的另一种方式，其中某些新事物从较低组织级别的部分组合中产生，通常导致部分本身不存在的属性。……

系统是具有自身属性的亚稳态事物，并且其中包含其他低级亚稳态事物，这一观点是理解系统思维和游戏设计的关键点之一^。5

The word synergy means “working together.” It … was originally brought into modern usage by Buckminster Fuller, who described it as “behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately” (Fuller 1975). This is another way of describing metastability, where some new thing arises from the combination of parts at a lower level of organization, often resulting in properties not found in the parts themselves.…

The idea that systems are metastable things with their own properties and that they contain other, lower-level metastable things within them is one of the key points to understand for both systems thinking and game design.⁵

这里的一个关键思想是巴克敏斯特·富勒的观察：“整个系统的行为无法通过其各个部分的行为进行预测。”当我们将游戏模块连接起来时，游戏设计中就会出现新的模式，这些模式往往是出乎意料的。这可能会导致问题——我们不知道如果我们把这个和那个放在一起，会产生不良后果！我们通常给这些意外问题起名为“错误”、“设计问题”和“漏洞”，我们将在本书的其余部分讨论这三个问题。

One key idea here is Buckminster Fuller’s observation that “behavior of whole systems [is] unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately.” As we connect the modules of our game, new patterns emerge in our game’s design, often coming at us out of the blue. This can cause problems—we didn’t know that if we put this and that together, an undesirable thing would result! We usually give these unexpected issues names like “bug,” “design problem,” and “exploit,” and we’ll be talking about all three throughout the remainder of this book.

然而，这些意想不到的行为也是创造机会的来源。即使我们的游戏设计看起来不太好，在低层次上改变一个小东西也可能会改变它。有时，一开始看起来像是错误的东西可能会成为游戏的最佳功能。最好的情况是给我们带来“突发玩法”，玩家在探索游戏的可能性空间时会发现设计师无法想象的有趣和有趣的情况。

However, these unexpected behaviors are also sources of creative opportunity. Even if our game design seems not to be working, changing one small thing at a low level might transform it. Sometimes, something that starts out looking like a bug can become a game’s best feature. The very best cases give us “emergent gameplay,” where fun and interesting situations unimagined by the designer are discovered by players as they explore the possibility space of the game.

迭代、评估和稳定性

Iteration, Evaluation, and Stability

迭代对于游戏设计来说很重要，但通常也充满挑战。如果你不慢慢来、小心谨慎，很容易迷失在迭代周期中。George Kokoris 表示，他认为“测试和迭代时最重要的事情是减少每个测试用例中的移动部件数量，这样才能更好地识别更改中的因果关系。” ⁶

Iteration is important in the design of our games but is often challenging. It’s easy to get lost in your iterative cycles if you don’t go slowly and carefully. George Kokoris says he believes that “the most important thing to do when testing and iterating is to reduce the number of moving parts in each test case, the better to identify the cause-effect relationships in your changes.”⁶

当我们以模块化方式构建时，我们可以在整个项目中定期休息或休息，也许可以暂停并评估项目的进展情况。此外，正如游戏设计师马克·威廉提醒我的那样，我们应该考虑到“在中型和大型工业规模的团队中……模块化工作还允许‘功能团队’分工，并贡献更多专注的努力和不那么艰巨的交付成果。这可以增强主人翁意识，从而增强个人对项目工作和贡献的承诺感和自豪感。”

When we build in a modular way, we can take rests or breaks at regular intervals throughout the project, perhaps to pause and evaluate where the project is at. In addition, as the game designer Marc Wilhelm reminded me, we should consider that “on medium and especially large, industrial-scale teams … working modularly also allows for ‘feature teams’ to divide up work and contribute more focused efforts and less daunting deliverables. This can increase a sense of ownership and therefore (a sense of) commitment and pride in an individual’s work and contribution to a project.”

为了最有效地工作，我们需要让游戏中的所有内容都准备好，并能够在项目的每个阶段进行评估，无论这种评估是在我们的工作室进行的日常游戏测试、与公众成员进行的正式游戏测试，还是向我们项目的利益相关者和财务支持者进行的演示。为了能够评估我们游戏的任何模块，每个子模块都必须稳定且运行良好。这非常符合敏捷开发的做事方式。正如游戏开发者和制作人 Alan Dang 所说，“通过能够在每个阶段进行评估，您可以实施更改或更改优先级，以帮助改善游戏，并使其符合每个人的愿景。” ⁷

In order to work most effectively, we need to have everything in our game ready and able to be evaluated at every stage of the project, whether that evaluation is a daily playtest in our studio, a formal playtest with members of the public, or a presentation to our project’s stakeholders and financial backers. For us to be able to evaluate any module of our game, every submodule has to be stable and working healthily. This is very much in line with the agile development way of doing things. As game developer and producer Alan Dang says, “By being able to evaluate at every stage, you can implement changes or change priorities to help make the game better, and make it come into line with everyone’s vision.”⁷

同心发展帮助我们管理时间

Concentric Development Helps Us Manage Our Time

采用同心、模块化的方式构建可以帮助我们更好地掌握项目的整体时间流逝。在到达 alpha 或 beta 里程碑时，游戏设计师经常面临的挑战是必须将游戏的各个模块协调为一个完整、连贯的整体，因为他们在全面制作期间已经缩小了项目范围。对于大多数项目来说，重新确定范围是不可避免的——我们最终都会用尽时间，不得不从游戏中删减一些内容。

Building in a concentric, modular way can help us get a better handle on the overall passage of time for our project. Arriving at the alpha or beta milestones, game designers often face a challenge in having to reconcile the modules of their game into a complete, coherent whole, having scoped their project down during full production. Rescoping is an inevitability for most projects—we all eventually run out of time and have to cut something from the game.

对于每个聪明的开发者来说，最大的问题是：我什么时候会意识到时间不多了？我还有时间回应我的意识到的问题吗？集中精力工作将帮助你更快地意识到事情还没有完成，时间不多了。虽然钟表匠可能无法放弃手表的子模块，但游戏的可塑性非常强（在易于塑造或铸造的意义上）。如果我们发现实现游戏的基本功能意外地占用了整个项目时间表的一半，我们仍然有时间以一种聪明的方式思考我们将在整个游戏中包含或排除什么，以及我们如何转移设计重点以在最后将所有东西整合在一起。

The big questions for every smart developer are: When will I realize that I’m running out of time? Will I have time left to respond to my realization? Working concentrically will help you realize sooner when things haven’t come together and that time is running out. While a watchmaker might not be able to ditch a submodule of their watch, games are remarkably plastic (in the sense of being easily shaped or molded). If we discover that implementing the basics of our game unexpectedly ate up half of our overall project timeline, we still have time to think in a smart way about what we’re going to include or exclude in the overall game, and how we might shift the focus of our design to draw everything together at the end.

当我们以同心、模块化的方式构建游戏时，我们能够更早、更清楚地看到游戏中的某个模块何时无法正常工作，从而支持我在第 11 章中提到的快速原型设计信条：“早失败、快速失败、经常失败”。如果我们以模块的方式思考，而不仅仅是以相互关联的整体的方式思考，那么我们就能尽早摆脱失败或不太重要的东西。这与皮克斯导演安德鲁·斯坦顿（《玩具总动员》、《虫虫危机》、《海底总动员》）的想法一致，艾德·卡特穆尔和艾米·华莱士在关于皮克斯流程的书《创造力公司》中对此进行了描述。

When we build in a concentric, modular way, we are able to see earlier and more clearly when a particular module of our game isn’t working, supporting the rapid prototyping credo that I mentioned in chapter 11: “Fail early, fail fast, fail often.” If we think in terms of modules, not just in terms of the interconnected whole, then we’re better able to ditch stuff that’s failing, or that isn’t so important, as early as possible. This lines up with a thought from Pixar director Andrew Stanton (Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo), which Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace describe in their book about Pixar’s process, Creativity Inc.

安德鲁喜欢说，人们需要尽可能快地犯错。在战斗中，如果你面对两座山，而你不确定要攻击哪一座，他说，正确的做法是赶紧选择。如果你发现这是错误的山，就转身攻击另一座。在这种情况下，唯一不可接受的做法是在山丘之间奔跑^。8

Andrew is fond of saying that people need to be wrong as fast as they can. In a battle, if you’re faced with two hills and you’re unsure which one to attack, he says, the right course of action is to hurry up and choose. If you find out it’s the wrong hill, turn around and attack the other one. In that scenario, the only unacceptable course of action is running between the hills.⁸

即使我们“攻错了山头”，最终不得不放弃一些工作，同心开发也能确保我们以富有成效的方式完成工作，发现有关我们项目的事实，而不是毫无成效地摆弄一些没有教会我们任何东西的东西。

Even if we “attack the wrong hill,” and end up having to throw away some work, concentric development ensures that we’ve done so in a productive way, uncovering facts about our project, rather than unproductively noodling on something that didn’t teach us anything.

转向同心发展

The Switch to Concentric Development

在构思过程中，我们通常以一种粗糙、快速和粗糙的方式工作，将原型拼凑在一起，作为我们的想法的工作示例。我们的游戏。记住，我强调过，在构思过程中，我们不会制作游戏的小型演示：我们只是在测试个人想法。

During ideation, we usually work in a rough-and-tumble, quick-and-dirty way, slapping together prototypes to stand up working examples of the ideas that we have for our game. Remember, I stressed that during ideation we’re not making a little demo of our game: we’re just testing individual ideas.

然而，在本书描述的趣味制作过程中——当构思阶段完成，预制作阶段开始时——我们转向同心开发，这可能是一个艰难的转变。它要求我们几乎在一夜之间改变我们的思维方式和实际方法。

However, in the playful production process described in this book—when the ideation phase is complete and the preproduction phase begins—we switch to concentric development, and it can be a tough transition to make. It requires us to change both our mindset and our practical approach almost overnight.

我们可以做的一件事是，让我们在构思结束时构建的最后几个原型更加精致。这通常是自然而然发生的。我们的一个构思原型通常比其他原型更成功。完善该原型（并可能从其他成功的原型中引入元素）可以非常顺利地过渡到在垂直切片上集中工作。

One thing we can do to ease the transition is to make the last few prototypes that we build toward the end of ideation a little more polished. This often happens quite naturally. One of our ideation prototypes will usually have been more successful than the others. Polishing that prototype (and maybe bringing in elements from other successful prototypes) can provide a very smooth transition to working concentrically on a vertical slice.

同心发展与垂直切片

Concentric Development and the Vertical Slice

我希望您现在可以清楚地看到同心开发如何支持我们在预制作结束时（垂直切片到期时）的整体进度。如果我们以这种方式工作，我们始终会拥有一款具有完整（或接近完整）功能的游戏，该游戏始终可玩，外观和声音都很棒，并且我们可以轻松地进行游戏测试。

I hope that you can now see clearly how concentric development supports our overall progress toward the end of the preproduction, when the vertical slice is due. If we work in this way, we always have a game made up of complete (or nearly complete) features, that is always playable, that looks and sounds great, and that we can easily playtest.

如果我们到了计划完成垂直切片的日期，而我们所有的机械装置仍处于半组装状态，外观和声音都还未完成，而且运转不佳，那么我们就错过了里程碑，只能苦苦挣扎着从一片狼藉中做出好东西。如果我们齐心协力，那么当我们到达垂直切片的截止日期时，我们设法制造的所有东西都将运转良好，并将为我们进入全面生产奠定坚实的基础。

If we get to the date by which we had planned to complete the vertical slice, and all of our mechanics are still half-assembled, unfinished in terms of their looks and sound, and not working well, then we miss the milestone and are left struggling to make something good out of a broken mess. If we work concentrically, everything that we’ve managed to make when we get to the date that the vertical slice is due will be working well, and will give us a solid foundation to work with as we move into full production.

这正是我们创作前三部《神秘海域》游戏的方式。我们开始构建一个垂直切片，从一份我们想要实现的功能列表开始。有些功能很快就完成了，有些功能则比我们预期的花费了更多时间。在预制作结束时，由于时间不足，我们不得不将一些想法搁置一旁。但由于我们齐心协力，我们构建的所有东西都汇集在一起​​，为我们打造一款好游戏奠定了基础。我们没有采用的想法进入了我们的脑海，并经常被用于我们的下一个项目。

This is very much the way that we created the first three Uncharted games. We started to build a vertical slice, beginning with a list of features that we wanted to implement. Some came together quickly, and some took more time than we’d expected. At the end of preproduction, we had to leave some of our ideas by the wayside, for want of time. But because we worked concentrically, everything that we did build came together, giving us the basis for a good game. The ideas that we didn’t use went into our mental back pocket and often made their way into our next project.

通过这种方式，同心开发可以避免我们在最后匆忙完成所有事情的压力。压力越小，我们团队的开发人员的身心健康状况就越好，也意味着我们的游戏最终发布时更有可能达到优异的质量。

In this way, concentric development prevents us from having to go through the stressful process of rushing everything together at the very end. Less stress means better physical and mental health for the developers on our team, and it also means that our game is much more likely to be of excellent quality when it finally ships.

同心开发不仅在预生产期间有用。它在整个生产过程中（预生产之后的下一个项目阶段）都很有价值，并将在我们朝着 alpha 里程碑（游戏“功能完整”）和 beta 里程碑（游戏“内容完整”）前进时提供支持。我们将在后面的章节中详细讨论这些里程碑。

Concentric development isn’t just useful during preproduction. It’s valuable throughout full production, the next project phase after preproduction, and will support us as we progress toward the alpha milestone, when the game is “feature complete,” and the beta milestone, when it’s “content complete.” We’ll talk more about these milestones in later chapters.

同心开发和敏捷

Concentric Development and Agile

2002 年，当我与 John Spinale 交谈时，同心圆开发在游戏开发圈还是一个激进的想法。也许是因为快速原型制作的传统——“随便拼凑起来，让它发挥作用，让它保持粗糙和未完成的状态！”（这种理念在我们的构思阶段很有价值），人们很难理解在预制作开始时转向这种方法的价值。

Concentric development was a radical idea in game development circles when I had my conversation with John Spinale in 2002. Perhaps because of the legacy of rapid prototyping—“slap it together, just make it function, leave it rough and unfinished!”—(a philosophy that is valuable during our ideation phase) it was hard for people to understand the value of shifting to this approach at the beginning of preproduction.

然而，虽然这种方法并不总是被称为同心开发（许多人以这种方式工作，但没有给他们所做的事情起名字），但越来越多的开发人员正在使用它，而且自从 Mark Cerny 方法和敏捷等开发方法兴起以来，它得到了更广泛的采用。

However, though the approach isn’t always called concentric development (many people work this way without having a name for what they’re doing), it’s used by increasing numbers of developers, and it’s become much more widely adopted since the rise of development approaches like Mark Cerny’s Method and Agile.

您可能已经对敏捷软件开发有所了解，因为世界各地的许多游戏和软件开发人员都在使用这种开发方法。与方法一样，敏捷开发是对软件构建“瀑布”方法所体现的流水线理念的进步反应。它通过其他流程出现，例如 20 世纪 70 年代和 80 年代的快速应用程序开发和 90 年代的合理统一流程。9^敏捷是一种软件开发方法，其中正在构建的软件的设计（以及如何最佳地构建软件的决策）通过开发团队和项目利益相关者之间的协作随着时间的推移而发展。

You might already know something about Agile software development, since it’s used by many game and software developers around the world. Like Method, agile development was a progressive reaction to the assembly-line ideas embodied in the “waterfall” approach to building software. It emerged via other processes like rapid application development in the 1970s and 1980s, and the rational unified process in the 1990s.⁹ Agile is an approach to software development in which the design of the software being built—and the decisions about how best to build it—evolve over time through a collaboration between the development team and the project stakeholders.

敏捷是一种有效且富有创意的软件开发方法。“它提倡适应性规划、渐进式开发、早期交付和持续改进，并鼓励快速灵活地应对变化。” ¹⁰正如《敏捷软件开发宣言》中总结的那样，敏捷强调：

Agile is an effective, creative way to approach software development. “It advocates adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continual improvement, and it encourages rapid and flexible response to change.”¹⁰ As summarized in “The Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” Agile emphasizes:

个体和互动高于流程和工具

可用的软件胜过详尽的文档

客户协作优先于合同谈判

响应变化而非遵循计划¹¹

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan¹¹

敏捷开发人员的经验法则可以用比敏捷更古老的一句话来概括：“将变化视为机遇，而不是危机。”

A rule of thumb for Agile developers is summarized by a saying older than Agile: “Treat change as an opportunity, rather than a crisis.”

模块化是敏捷哲学的一部分，团队会挑选最重要的功能和内容模块，并在冲刺期间以专注的方式对其进行处理，然后根据做得好和做得不好的地方停下来重新评估项目的总体进程。

Modularity is built into the philosophy of Agile, as teams pick the most important modules of functionality and content and work on them in a focused way during a sprint, before stopping and reevaluating the overall course of the project in light of the things that did and didn’t turn out well.

最大化未完成的工作量

Maximizing the Amount of Work Not Done

同心开发迫使你不断讨论游戏设计中最重要的事情，就像你今天在屏幕上看到的一样——这是一种非常敏捷的观点。这不仅有助于你的项目改进，而且可以最大限度地减少你可能进行的不受控制的过度工作，并帮助你运行一个更无压力的项目。正如我在南加州大学游戏项目的同事、交互设计师和教育家玛格丽特·莫泽所说，“这种频繁重新审视优先事项的方式是你最大限度地减少未完成工作量的方法（我最喜欢的敏捷原则）。” ¹²

Concentric development forces you to have an ongoing discussion about what’s most important to the design of your game, as you see it on your screen today—a very Agile outlook. This not only helps your project improve but it minimizes the amount of uncontrolled overwork you might otherwise do and helps you run a more stress-free project. As my colleague in the USC Games program, interaction designer and educator Margaret Moser, says, “This frequent revisiting of priorities is how you maximize the amount of work not done (my favorite Agile principle).”¹²

玛格丽特在这里描述的是敏捷宣言背后的十二项原则之一，即“简单——最大化未完成工作量的艺术——至关重要”。这个“未完成的工作”概念很棘手。难道我们不想最大化我们实际完成的工作量吗？这里所说的是，我们应该专注于那些已被证明能为我们的项目目标（尤其是我们的体验目标）带来帮助的东西。我们还应该意识到，哪些东西对我们的项目目标没有任何帮助。如果它没有增加任何东西，我们就不应该去做它。这是敏捷的一个方面，我们可以总结为“更聪明地工作，而不是更努力地工作”。

What Margaret is describing here comes from one of the twelve principles behind the Agile manifesto, namely, “Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.” This concept of “the work not done” is a tricky one. Don’t we want to maximize the amount of work that we actually do? What is being said here is that we should keep a focus on what has been shown to add something to our game in terms of our project goals, our experience goal in particular. We should also remain aware of when something is not adding anything that contributes toward our project goals. If it’s not adding anything, we shouldn’t work on it. This is an aspect of Agile that we could summarize as “work smarter, not harder.”

定期参考你的项目目标和体验目标可以帮助你最大限度地完成你没有完成的任务，因为你意识到你不需要做这些任务——它们对你想要创造的体验没有贡献。通过牢记我们的体验目标并定期测试我们的游戏，我们有一个很好的基础来评估每个功能或内容，一旦它进入游戏，我们就可以决定是保留还是放弃它。

Referring to your project goals and experience goal regularly helps you to maximize the number of tasks that you didn’t work on, because you realize you don’t need to do them—they don’t contribute to the kind of experience you’re trying to create. By keeping our experience goal in mind and playtesting our game regularly, we have a good basis for evaluating each feature or piece of content as soon as it goes into the game, and for deciding if we should keep it or ditch it.

最大限度地减少不必要的“未完成工作”可以清除不必要的任务，并帮助您集中精力休息以准备第二天的工作，或与朋友、伴侣或孩子共度时光。您花在过上快乐、充实、有联系的生活上的时间——以及由此产生的良好身心健康——也是您整体游戏设计实践的重要组成部分。

Maximizing the amount of unnecessary “work not done” should clear your decks of unneeded tasks and can help you focus on getting rested for the next day’s work, or spending time with your friends, partner, or children. The time that you spend in leading a happy, fulfilling, connected life—and the good physical and mental health that results—is also an important part of your overall game design practice.

同心发展的步伐

The Pace of Concentric Development

当你以同心方式工作时，你必须走得慢一些，一开始可能会感到沮丧。你正在对无聊的主要机制进行大量细致的工作，而你真正想开始尝试令人兴奋的次要机制。主要机制是如此基础——它们肯定会起作用！

When you’re working concentrically, you have to go somewhat slowly, and it might feel frustrating at first. You’re doing a lot of detailed work on the boring primary mechanics, while you really want to start playing with the exciting secondary mechanics. The primary mechanics are so basic—surely they’re going to work!

然而，这种强制的缓慢通常（也许是违反直觉的）会给我们一种紧迫感，让我们尽快完成主要机制，包括细节和所有内容，这样我们才能接触到其他机制中那些通常很有趣的部分我们的游戏。正因为如此，当你全神贯注地工作时，你不太可能浪费时间在主要机制的无关紧要的方面，而更有可能花费适当的时间来完善它们。

However, this enforced slowness usually (and perhaps counterintuitively) gives us more of a sense of urgency to get the primary mechanics finished, details and all, so that we can get to those other mechanics that are usually the interesting and fun parts of our game. Because of this, when you’re working concentrically, you’re less likely to waste time noodling on insignificant aspects of your primary mechanics and are more likely to spend the right amount of time on making them good.

如果你在团队中工作，同心开发和模块化构建将需要在沟通和信息共享方面付出额外的努力，以便你和你的队友可以评估你正在做的事情，决定谁将负责下一步的任务，并讨论阻碍你取得进展的任何障碍。这种对沟通的重视是敏捷开发的一部分，包括站立会议等实践，我们将在第 22 章中讨论。持续讨论你的游戏制作过程也很重要。有时，这不仅仅是关于你的游戏结果如何；而是关于你的过程结果如何。正如 Alan Dang 提醒我的那样，“能够讨论最佳实践或开发、提高效率的方法等，是敏捷的核心原则的一部分。”

If you’re working in a team, concentric development and modular building will require some extra effort in communication and information sharing, so that you and your teammates can evaluate what you’re making, decide who will do which task next, and discuss any blockages that are preventing you from making progress. This emphasis on communication is built into agile development, with practices like the stand-up meeting, which we’ll discuss in chapter 22. It’s also important to discuss your game-making process on an ongoing basis. Sometimes it’s not just about how your game is turning out; it’s about how your process is turning out. As Alan Dang reminded me, “Being able to discuss best practices or development, ways to be efficient, etc., are part of the core principles of Agile.”

您可能已经意识到，同心开发及其所包含的持续范围界定过程可能要求您在开发过程中重新协商合同，以更改其细节以反映项目的新范围。如果您与发行商达成协议，您将提供一些功能列表，然后意识到您无法提供所有功能，那么您可能会陷入困境。幸运的是，部分得益于敏捷的兴起，聪明的游戏发行商越来越意识到，与具有许多功能但设计上存在缺陷、不完善和杂乱无章的游戏相比，具有较少创新、集成、可玩机制的精致游戏更具娱乐性（并且销量更好）。我希望您的发行商具有这种进步的态度，您应该尝试在合同中建立一定程度的灵活性。如果您在这方面遇到困难，您应该寻求高级项目管理和合同建议。

You’ve probably realized that concentric development, and the process of ongoing scoping that it entails, might demand that you renegotiate a contract partway through development, to change its details to reflect the new scope of your project. If you’d agreed with a publisher that you’d deliver some list of features, and then realize that you can’t deliver them all, you might be in hot water. Fortunately, and partly thanks to the rise of Agile, smart game publishers are increasingly realizing that a polished game with a shorter list of innovative, integrated, playable mechanics is more entertaining (and sells better) than a game that has lots of features but is buggy, unpolished, and all over the place in terms of its design. I hope that your publisher has this kind of progressive attitude, and you should try to build some reasonable degree of flexibility into your contracts. If you get into difficulty around this, you should seek out advanced project management and contract advice.

您可以将同心式开发用于任何类型的项目，无论项目规模大小、开发周期是几年还是几个小时。当您只有固定的时间来制作内容时，这种方法效果很好，当您的项目时间表是开放式时，这种方法效果也很好。如果您使用这种方法，几乎​​可以保证您的开发过程得到更好的控制，并在更少的压力下制作出更高质量的游戏和互动媒体，并带来更多创新。

You can use concentric development for any kind of project, large or small, years-long or hours-long. It works well when you only have a fixed amount of time to make what you’re making, and it also works well when your project timeline is open-ended. If you use it, it’s almost guaranteed to bring your development process under better control, and to lead to games and interactive media of higher quality and more innovation made under less stress.

2. 1. Herbert A. Simon，《人工智能科学》（马萨诸塞州剑桥：麻省理工学院出版社，1969 年出版），Donella H. Meadows 在《系统思考：入门》中转述，Richard Lemarchand 转述；Meadows 和 Wright在《系统思考：入门》中转述，第 83 页。

3. 1.  Herbert A. Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969), paraphrased by Donella H. Meadows in Thinking in Systems: A Primer, and by Richard Lemarchand; Meadows and Wright, Thinking in Systems: A Primer, 83.

4. 2. “巫师的智慧：‘木讷主义’”，ESPN，2010 年 6 月 4 日，https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story ?id=5249709 。

5. 2.  “The Wizard’s Wisdom: ‘Woodenisms,’” ESPN, June 4, 2010, https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/news/story?id=5249709.

6. 3. Daniel Ostroff，《细节不是细节》，Eames Office，2014 年 9 月 8 日，https://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/the-details-are-not-the-details/。

7. 3.  Daniel Ostroff, “The Details Are Not the Details,” Eames Office, September 8, 2014, https://www.eamesoffice.com/blog/the-details-are-not-the-details/.

8. 4. Sellers，《高级游戏设计》，42。

9. 4.  Sellers, Advanced Game Design, 42.

10. 5. Sellers，《高级游戏设计》，43，引用 Fuller 和 Appleton，《协同学》，3。

11. 5.  Sellers, Advanced Game Design, 43, quoting Fuller and Appleton, Synergetics, 3.

12. 6.私密通讯。

13. 6.  Private communication.

14. 7.私人通信。

15. 7.  Private communication.

16. 8. Catmull 和 Wallace，《创造力公司》，97 页。

17. 8.  Catmull and Wallace, Creativity, Inc., 97.

18. 9. “快速应用程序开发”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development；“Rational Unified Process”，维基百科，https: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Unified_Process。

19. 9.  “Rapid Application Development,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development; “Rational Unified Process,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_Unified_Process.

20. 10. “敏捷软件开发”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development。

21. 10.  “Agile Software Development,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development.

22. 11. Ken Schwaber 等人，“敏捷软件开发宣言”，2001 年，https://agilemanifesto.org/。

23. 11.  Ken Schwaber et al., “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” 2001, https://agilemanifesto.org/.

24. 12.私人通信。

25. 12.  Private communication.

交付垂直切片的构建

Delivering a Build of the Vertical Slice

我们通过创建版本来交付垂直切片（参见第 5 章）。交付时，垂直切片应该相对没有重大错误和其他技术问题：我们对垂直切片的完善应该超越我们的游戏设计和制作价值，延伸到游戏的稳定性。没有人可以期望垂直切片完全没有错误，但如果它在向重要的合作者或利益相关者演示时反复崩溃，那就太尴尬了。这意味着我们在处理垂直切片时要抽出时间来保持代码健康并正常运行，这与我们刚刚讨论的同心开发一致。

We deliver the vertical slice by creating a build (see chapter 5). When delivered, the vertical slice should be relatively free of major bugs and other technical problems: the polish that we give the vertical slice should extend beyond our game design and production values to the stability of the game. No one can expect a vertical slice to be perfectly bug-free, but it would be embarrassing to have it crash repeatedly during a demo to an important group of collaborators or stakeholders. That means making time as we work on the vertical slice to keep the code healthy and working well, which is in line with the concentric development that we just discussed.

任何游戏未使用但存在于项目文件夹中的多余资产都应从构建中排除，以尽量减少构建的大小。这有时很难实现，并且可能需要学习引擎的新技术方面，但在垂直切片到期时这样做是很好的，有助于我们进入以优化为导向的思维模式，这是良好游戏制作过程的特征。这也意味着在项目结束时要学习的东西会少一点，此时最小化构建的大小将非常重要。

Any superfluous assets not used by the game but present in the project folder should be excluded from the build, to minimize its size. This is sometimes a pain to achieve and can involve learning new technical aspects of one’s engine, but it is good to do this by the time the vertical slice is due, to help get us into the kind of optimization-oriented mindset that characterizes good game-making process. It also means there’s one less thing to learn toward the end of the project, when minimizing the size of the build will be very important.

用其他材料支撑垂直切片

Supporting the Vertical Slice with Other Materials

如果你使用同心开发创建了垂直切片，那么可能不需要花很长时间就能玩完，这没关系。质量比数量更重要。通常很难创建一个理想的垂直切片，其中游戏的所有核心元素都呈现、可玩且精致。无论是由于游戏设计范围还是时间不够，您都可以使用其他材料（如概念图、电影和文档）来支持垂直切片。将它们与垂直切片一起以精美包装的形式提供，以便于理解它们如何代表垂直切片中缺少的基本内容。这将是专业精神的锻炼 — 您希望清晰地沟通并给人留下良好的印象。

If you’ve created your vertical slice using concentric development, it might not take long to play through, and that’s okay. Quality matters more than quantity. It’s often difficult to create an ideal vertical slice where all of the core elements of the game are present, playable, and polished. Whether it’s because of the scope of your game’s design or because you just ran out of time, you can support your vertical slice with other materials like concept art, movies, and documentation. Deliver them alongside the vertical slice in a nicely presented package, so that it’s easy to understand how they represent the essential things that are missing from your vertical slice. This will be an exercise in professionalism—you want to communicate clearly and make a good impression.

从创建垂直切片开始了解范围

Learning about Scope from the Creation of the Vertical Slice

明智的做法是不要忽视我们在预生产过程中了解到的关于构建产品所需时间的信息。尝试在有时间限制的预生产阶段构建游戏核心（参见第 11 章）为我们提供了第一次重要的机会来审视项目的范围。我们计划为我们的游戏总体投入多少资金？根据我们刚刚了解到的需要多少次迭代才能达到我们满意的质量水平，这是否现实？现在是否已经是时候从设计中删减一些内容，并专注于使用游戏的核心元素以创新的新方式实现我们的项目目标了？在接下来的几章中，我们将研究如何制定一个切实可行的计划，以便在我们拥有的时间内构建一款游戏。

It’s wise not to ignore what we learn during preproduction about how long it takes us to build things. Attempting to build the core of our game in a timeboxed preproduction phase (see chapter 11) gives us our first major opportunity to look at the scope of our project. How much are we planning to make overall for our game? Is that realistic, based on what we’ve just learned about how many iterations it takes us to get to a level of quality that we’re happy with? Is it already time to cut some things from the design and focus on using our game’s core elements to realize our project goals in innovative new ways? In the next few chapters, we’ll look at how to make a realistic plan for a game we can build in the time we have for full production.

测试垂直切片

Playtesting the Vertical Slice

一旦我们完成了垂直切片，就该进行游戏测试了。使用我在第 12 章中列出的指导方针和技术，与至少 7 个人一起进行游戏测试。根据您对游戏环节和离职面谈的观察做笔记，从游戏测试中获取所有信息。评估反馈并在此基础上迭代您的设计。

Once we’ve delivered the vertical slice, it’s time to playtest it. Run a playtest with at least seven individuals, using the guidelines and techniques that I lay out in chapter 12. Capture all the information that you can from the playtest by taking notes based on your observations of the play sessions and the exit interviews. Evaluate the feedback and iterate on your design from there.

重点测试我们的游戏标题和早期关键艺术

Focus Testing Our Game’s Title and Early Key Art

预制作阶段的结束是进行更多工作的好时机，我们可以利用这个机会来弄清楚如何与游戏的潜在受众建立联系。我们可以通过进行焦点测试来研究什么可能是我们游戏的好标题，并就第一幅关键艺术作品的原型获得一些反馈。（关键艺术作品是一张单一图像，它传达了有关您的游戏的大量信息，并用于营销。）如果您想这样做，您可以在本书的网站 playfulproductionprocess.com 上找到详细说明。

The end of preproduction is a good time to do some more work in figuring out how we might connect with the potential audience for our game. We can do this simply by running a focus test to research what might be a good title for our game and get some feedback on a prototype for the first piece of key art. (Key art is a single image that conveys a lot of information about your game and is used in marketing.) If you’d like to do this, you can find detailed instructions on this book’s website, playfulproductionprocess.com.

干得好！您已经交付了（或者正在交付）垂直切片，这是定义游戏设计最重要的事情之一。在下一章中，我们将暂时停止讨论预生产结束时应交付的可交付成果，讨论大多数游戏开发者在其职业生涯中某个阶段都会遇到的一个严重问题：加班问题。

Well done! You’ve delivered—or are well on your way to delivering—a vertical slice, which is one of the most important things you can make to define the design of your game. In the next chapter, we will take a break from our discussion of the deliverables due at the end of preproduction, to talk about a serious issue that most game developers will encounter at some point in their careers: the problem of crunch.

亚里士多德的 诗论

Aristotle’s Poetics

希腊哲学家亚里士多德生活在公元前 384 年至公元前 322 年。公元前 335 年左右，他撰写了一部关于剧院戏剧表演的论文，名为《诗学》。这是已知最早的戏剧理论著作，在西方世界失传了一千多年，直到 12 世纪西班牙穆斯林哲学家伊本·鲁世德的翻译才将其重新介绍给世人。

The Greek philosopher Aristotle lived from 384 to 322 BCE. Around 335 BCE he wrote a treatise on dramatic performance in the theater called the Poetics. This is the earliest known work of dramatic theory and was lost to the Western world for over a thousand years, being reintroduced thanks to a twelfth-century translation by the Spanish-Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd.

在《诗学》中，亚里士多德写道，故事首先陈述一个立场，然后探索这个立场，然后得出结论，以创造“一个完整而完整的行动的表述”，各部分之间有因果关系。更简单地说，“整体是有开始、中间和结束的东西。” ²

In the Poetics, Aristotle writes that a story first states a position, then explores that position, and then reaches a conclusion, to create “a representation of an action that is whole and entire,” with a cause-and-effect relationship between the parts. Put more simply, “A whole is something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”²

对于亚里士多德来说，故事中的英雄面临着一些问题，他称之为“结”。他将故事分为两个部分：复杂化和解开。在复杂化阶段，英雄要么了解问题，要么看着问题出现。在解开的一半，英雄试图解决问题，最终得到一些结果。

For Aristotle, the heroes of stories face some problem, which he characterizes as a “knot.” He divides stories into two halves: complication and unraveling. In the complication phase, the hero either learns about the problem or watches the problem appear. In the unraveling half, the hero tries to deal with the problem, leading to some ultimate outcome.

亚里士多德《诗学》的三部分结构与许多当代剧本和小说的三幕结构非常契合。第一幕是故事的开端，通过介绍人物和世界来铺垫故事；第二幕是中间，通常是第一幕的两倍长，向我们展示了故事如何随着情节的展开而变得更加复杂；第三幕是结尾，通常是最短的一幕，展示了故事的高潮和结局。一部两小时的故事片可能采用三幕结构，但一部一小时长的电视连续剧也可能采用三幕结构。即使是一部十分钟的短片也可能采用三幕结构。

The three-part structure of Aristotle’s Poetics fits well onto the three-act structure of many contemporary screenplays and novels. Act one, the beginning, sets up the story by introducing us to the characters and world; act two, the middle, is usually twice as long as act one and shows us how the story becomes more complicated as it unfolds; act three, the end, is often the shortest act and shows the climax and resolution of the story. A two-hour feature film might have a three-act structure, but so might an hour-long episode of a television series. Even a ten-minute short film might be set up in three acts.

这种简单的开头-中间-结尾结构似乎可以直接应用于游戏，无论是我们已经玩了数千年的竞技游戏，还是现代单人数字游戏的叙事“战役”模式（以及介于这两极之间的大多数游戏）。当团队开始或玩家角色开始旅程时，游戏就开始了。随着团队争夺领先地位或玩家角色在旅途中不断前进，游戏在中间部分变得越来越复杂。所有游戏（除非被放弃）都会结束，当时间到并且一支队伍获胜时，或者当玩家角色完成任务时（至少目前如此）。

This simple construction of beginning-middle-end seems directly applicable to games, whether they’re competitive games like those we’ve been playing for thousands of years, or the storytelling “campaign” mode of modern single-player digital games (and most every game between these two poles). A game has a beginning when the teams kick off or the player-character sets out on their journey. Things become increasingly complicated in the middle part of a game, as the teams vie for the lead or the player-character progresses along their journey. All games—unless they’re abandoned—reach an end, when time’s up and one team wins, or when the player-character reaches the end of their quest (for now, at least).

弗赖塔格金字塔

Freytag’s Pyramid

1863 年，德国剧作家兼小说家古斯塔夫·弗赖塔格 (Gustav Freytag) 写了一本名为《戏剧技术》的书，其中提出了五部分戏剧结构理论。戏剧和电影专业的学生对伴随其理论的图表很熟悉，被称为弗赖塔格金字塔（图 16.1）。

In 1863, the German playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag wrote a book called Die Technik des Dramas (Technique of the drama), in which he laid out a theory of a five-part dramatic structure. The diagram that accompanies his theory is familiar to students of drama and cinema and is known as Freytag’s Pyramid (figure 16.1).

弗赖塔格的理论建立在亚里士多德的三部分结构之上，并为我们提供了额外的工具。对于弗赖塔格来说，一个故事由五个部分组成。

Freytag’s theory builds on Aristotle’s three-part structure and gives us some extra equipment to work with. For Freytag, a story consists of five parts.

1. 这展览或介绍，介绍或设定故事的世界和主要人物。这是确定故事发生的时间和地点，以及故事的情绪或基调的时候。
2. The exposition or introduction, where the world and the main characters of the story are explained or set up. This is when the time and place of the story are established, along with its mood or tone.
3. 这指向高潮的情节，故事情节的复杂展开就发生在这里。这是故事中非常重要的一部分，因为其中的事件需要有逻辑性，以便精心设置下一部分。
4. The rising action, where the unfolding complications of the story take place. This is a very important part of the story, because its events need to logically flow so as to carefully set up the next part.
5. 上升动作达到顶峰高潮，所有的复杂情况都达到了顶点，成为了人物命运发生根本性改变的转折点。
6. The rising action peaks with a climax, where all of the complications come to a head, providing a turning point where the characters’ fates are fundamentally changed.
7. 高潮之后是坠落行动，高潮部分的结果就此展开。接下来的情节往往包含最后一刻的悬念，最终结果似乎难以确定。
8. The climax is followed by the falling action, where the results of the climax are played out. The falling action will often contain one last moment of suspense, where the final outcome seems uncertain.
9. 最后，我们到达结局或者灾难，我们可以看到故事中的世界如何因故事中的事件而发生持久的变化。角色开始适应这种变化，这导致了宣泄，即情感的释放，释放了观众在故事中积累的所有紧张和焦虑。
10. Finally, we reach the denouement or catastrophe, where we see how the world of the story has undergone lasting change, because of the events of our tale. The characters begin to get used to this change, and this results in catharsis, an emotional release of all the tension and anxiety that built up in the audience during the story.

和亚里士多德的《诗学》一样，弗赖塔格的五部分结构也符合许多故事的写作和讲述方式。莎士比亚的大多数戏剧都是五幕剧，电视制片人兼剧本编辑约翰·约克在他的著作《走进森林：五幕故事之旅》中认为，五幕分析适用于所有戏剧形式的故事，包括游戏。

Like Aristotle’s Poetics, Freytag’s five-part structure fits with the way that many stories are written and told. Most of Shakespeare’s plays take place in five acts, and in his book Into the Woods: A Five-Act Journey into Story the television producer and script editor John Yorke argues that a five-act analysis is useful for stories across all dramatic forms, including games.

游戏结构反映故事结构

Game Structures Mirror Story Structure

亚里士多德和弗赖塔格都强调了开头、中间和结尾的重要性，这是一个很好的切入点，让我们从游戏设计的视角来讨论故事结构。正如艾伦·鲁普顿在她的书《设计就是讲故事》中指出的那样，我们都在自己的生活中认识到了这种基本结构，它不可避免地有开头、中间和结尾^。3

This focus that both Aristotle and Freytag have on the importance of a beginning, middle, and end is a good starting point for our discussion of story structure through a game design lens. As Ellen Lupton points out in her book Design Is Storytelling, we all recognize this fundamental structure in our own lives, which inevitably have a beginning, a middle, and an end.³

精心设计的游戏无疑具有戏剧性，有兴奋、兴奋和绝望的时刻，有不断上升的紧张感和宣泄的模式。此外，许多电子游戏都是围绕任务或探索构建的，所有这些任务或探索都必然有开始、中间和结束。在开始时，玩家角色可能会要么从非玩家角色 (NPC) 那里获得明确的任务，要么以带有显眼钥匙孔的锁门的形式获得隐含的任务（用弗雷塔格的话来说，是展示）。玩家（通过玩家角色）进入游戏世界，寻找完成任务的物品或信息；障碍出现，必须克服（上升行动）。

A well-designed game is undeniably dramatic, with moments of excitement, elation, and despair, and with patterns of rising tension and cathartic release. In addition, many videogames are structured around missions or quests, all of which have, by necessity, a beginning, middle, and end. At the beginning, the player-character might receive either an explicit mission from a nonplayer character (NPC), or an implicit mission in the form of a locked door with a conspicuous keyhole (exposition, in Freytag’s terms). The player (via the player-character) sets out into the world of the game, looking for the object or information that will fulfill the mission; obstacles arise, and must be overcome (rising action).

最终，事情会发展到关键时刻：必须打败怪物或解决难题才能获得完成任务所需的东西（高潮）。有时会回到发出任务的 NPC 身边，或回到需要钥匙的门前，事件会继续展开：可能是更多怪物的突然袭击，或挡住道路的落石，需要发现一条新路（坠落动作）。最后，任务完成（结局）。NPC 交出一些有价值的小饰品，或门打开，揭示通往新任务的道路。

Eventually, things come to a head: a monster must be defeated or a problem solved in order to gain the thing needed to fulfill the mission (climax). There’s sometimes a journey back to the NPC that issued the quest, or to the door that needed a key, and events continue to unfold: maybe a surprise attack by more monsters or a rockfall that blocks the way, necessitating the discovery of a new path (falling action). Finally, the mission is complete (dénouement). The NPC hands over some valuable trinket, or the door opens, revealing the path forward to a new quest.

故事和游戏玩法都是分形的

Stories and Gameplay Are Fractal

因此，一个故事可以分为三幕或五幕。同样，幕也可以分为序列。弗兰克·丹尼尔 (Frank Daniel) 曾是一名电影导演、制片人、编剧，也是南加州大学电影艺术学院的院长。他因教授“序列结构”编剧方法而闻名，这种方法认为一部电影由八个序列组成：两个序列为第一幕，四个序列为第二幕，两个序列为第三幕。

So, a story can be broken down into three or five acts. Similarly, acts can be broken down into sequences. Frank Daniel was a film director, producer, screenwriter, and a dean of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He is famous for teaching a “sequence structure” approach to screenwriting, which sees a film as made up of eight sequences: two for the first act, four for the second act, and two for the third act.

保罗·约瑟夫·古利诺（Paul Joseph Gulino）曾师从弗兰克·丹尼尔（Frank Daniel）学习编剧，他在《编剧：序列法》一书中说道：“一部典型的两小时电影由序列组成——8 到 15 分钟的片段，每个片段都有自己的内部结构——实际上，它们是在较长的电影中构建的较短的电影。在很大程度上，每个序列都有自己的主角、紧张感、情节发展和结局——就像整部电影一样。序列和独立的 15 分钟电影之间的区别在于，序列中提出的冲突和问题只能在序列中得到部分解决，而当它们得到解决时，结局通常会引出新的问题，而这些问题又会成为后续序列的主题。” ⁴或者如特蕾西·富勒顿（Tracy Fullerton）所说：“序列会提出一个戏剧性的问题并给出答案，但并不一定能解决问题。侦探会接手这个案子吗？她会在谋杀现场找到线索吗？” ⁵

In his book Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, Paul Joseph Gulino, who learned screenwriting from Frank Daniel, says, “A typical two-hour film is composed of sequences—eight- to fifteen-minute segments that have their own internal structure—in effect, shorter films built inside the larger film. To a significant extent, each sequence has its own protagonist, tension, rising action, and resolution—just like a film as a whole. The difference between a sequence and a stand-alone fifteen-minute film is that the conflicts and issues raised in a sequence are only partially resolved within the sequence, and when they are resolved, the resolution often opens up new issues, which in turn become the subject of subsequent sequences.”⁴ Or as Tracy Fullerton puts it: “A sequence asks a dramatic question and answers it, but does not necessarily resolve it. Will the detective take the case? Will she find any clues at the murder site?”⁵

同样，一个序列可以分解成多个场景，每个场景通常发生在不同的地点或关注特定的角色群。与序列一样，场景本身就是一个独立的故事，展示角色在对正在展开的事件和彼此做出反应时所经历的变化。

Similarly, a sequence can be broken down into a number of scenes, each of which usually takes place in a separate location or focuses on a particular constellation of characters. Like a sequence, a scene is its own kind of stand-alone story that shows characters going through changes as they act and react to the unfolding events and to each other.

但场景并不是故事中戏剧动作的最小单位：我们可以将场景分解为多个节拍。节拍是来自戏剧和电影制作，部分与剧情展开的时间有关，但也指事件、决定、发现或只是两个角色之间的交流。节拍推动着故事的进展。

But a scene is not the smallest unit of dramatic action in a story: we can break a scene down into a number of beats. A beat is a concept from the theater and from filmmaking, relating partly to the timing of the unfolding drama, but also referring to an event, a decision, a discovery, or just an exchange between two characters. Beats push a story along on a moment-by-moment basis.

在思考场景和节拍时，思考角色进入和离开场景或节拍时的情绪价会很有用。情绪价是心理学中用来讨论情绪高低的术语。愤怒、悲伤和恐惧等情绪具有负价，而快乐则具有正价。场景或节拍中的角色通常以某种情绪价聚集在一起 - 比如，一个快乐，另一个悲伤 - 然后他们互相反弹，发生情感互动并在此过程中改变他们的情绪价 - 悲伤的人现在快乐，反之亦然。如果一个场景中的角色的情绪价与他们进入时相同，那么这个场景可能不适合故事情节。

It can be useful when thinking about scenes and beats to think about the emotional valences of the characters as they enter and leave the scene or the beat. Emotional valence is a term used in psychology to discuss the up-ness or down-ness of emotions. Emotions like anger, sadness, and fear have negative valence, while joy has a positive valence. A scene or a beat usually has characters come together with certain emotional valences—say, one happy and the other sad—and then they bounce off each other, having an emotional interaction and changing their valences in the process—the one that was sad is now happy and vice versa. If a scene leaves the characters with the same valences they had when they entered it, then perhaps that scene isn’t serving the story.

所以，故事、幕、序列、场景和节奏。显然，亚里士多德和弗赖塔格所描述的整个故事的形状也适用于故事的子部分及其子部分，直至节奏的水平。场景中的每个节拍都有复杂和解开、呼唤和回应的起伏模式。这种起伏的模式让我们时时刻刻都感兴趣，就像我们可能会被炉边闪烁的火焰或岸边的海浪迷住一样。

So, stories, acts, sequences, scenes, and beats. It seems clear that the shapes of whole stories that Aristotle and Freytag describe also apply to the subparts of stories, and their sub-subparts, right down to the level of the beat. Each beat in a scene has a rising and falling pattern of complication and unraveling, of call and response. This undulating pattern keeps us interested from moment to moment and hour to hour, just as we might be transfixed by the flickering flames in a hearth or the waves on the shore.

这样，故事就变成了分形，这是数学中的一个概念，用来描述结构，其部分和子部分的形状与整体结构相似。随着故事中动作的起伏，每个幕、序列、场景和节拍也会起伏不定（图 16.2）。（这个想法可能起源于 20 世纪 90 年代由 Melanie Anne Phillips 和 Chris Huntley 开发的“Dramatica”故事结构模型。）⁶

In this way, stories are fractal, a concept from mathematics that describes structures whose parts and subparts are similar in shape to the whole structure. As the action rises and falls across the story, so it rises and falls across each act, sequence, scene, and beat (figure 16.2). (This idea probably originates with the “Dramatica” model of story structure developed in the 1990s by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley.)⁶

只需稍加想象，就能发现游戏的结构也是分形的。我们刚刚研究了游戏任务的结构与弗赖塔格金字塔相同。现在，您可能可以想象整个任务的子部分或子部分中存在相同的上升和下降模式，这让人想起 Jaime Griesemer 在《光晕》中提出的三十秒乐趣概念，我们在第 10 章中讨论过这个概念。

It only takes a small leap of imagination to see that games are fractal in their structure too. We just looked at how a game mission has the same structure as Freytag’s Pyramid. Now you can probably imagine the same rising and falling pattern in a subsection of the whole mission or in a sub-subsection, in a way that is reminiscent of Jaime Griesemer’s concept of the thirty seconds of fun in Halo, which we talked about in chapter 10.

杰米的三十秒乐趣描述了许多不同的个人游戏节奏。进入新关卡并躲在掩体后面。与每个敌人战斗。在掩体之间移动，收集能量提升。这些节奏中的每一个都有起有落，加起来就是游戏各个部分的整体进展，最终是整个游戏的进展。

Jaime’s thirty seconds of fun describes a number of different individual gameplay beats. Enter a new level and hunker down behind cover. Fight each enemy. Work between cover spots, collecting power-ups as we go. Each of these beats rises and falls, adding up to overall progression through each part of the game, and eventually through the whole game.

我们也可以很容易地在竞技游戏和体育运动中看到这种分形模式，这些游戏和体育运动的结构是围绕半场和四分之一场、赛局和比赛、回合和系列赛。我们甚至可以使用分形概念来向上延伸竞技数字游戏和体育运动的“元”：战术、战略和玩家或团队关系的元游戏。纵观故事结构，我们都能发现对我们思考游戏设计很有价值的对应关系。

We can easily see this fractal pattern in competitive games and sports as well, which are structured around halves and quarters, sets and matches, rounds and series. We can even use the fractal concept to reach upward toward the “meta” of competitive digital gaming and of sports: a metagame of tactics, strategies, and player or team relationships. Everywhere we look at story structure, we can find correspondences that are valuable to our thinking about the design of our games.

故事的组成部分

The Components of Story

现在我们已经了解了一些故事结构基础知识，让我们更深入地探讨一下我们所熟知和喜爱的大多数故事的组成部分。

Now that we’ve looked at some story structure basics, let’s take a slightly deeper dive into the components that make up most of the stories we know and love.

大多数故事都有一个主角故事的主人公，从实际和情感的角度看，我们与他的观点非常一致。讲故事的人使用同情和同理心让我们与故事中的主人公产生共鸣，而这些技巧多种多样。电影制作人使用面部表情特写和情感音乐在我们和主角之间建立情感桥梁。小说家经常使用主角的内心声音。游戏设计师可以自由选择如何让我们在情感上接近玩家角色主角，但我们必须努力工作，因为面部特写和内心独白通常很难优雅地融入我们的设计中。许多伟大的故事都有不止一个主角，一些电子游戏也有不止一个玩家角色。

Most stories have a protagonist, the hero of the story, whose viewpoint we are closely aligned with from a practical and emotional standpoint. The storyteller uses techniques of empathy and sympathy to get us to resonate with the hero of the story, and those techniques are many and varied. A filmmaker uses close-ups of facial expression and emotive music to build an emotional bridge between us and the protagonist. A novelist often uses the inner voice of the protagonist. Game designers are free to choose how to bring us emotionally close to player-character protagonists, but we have to work hard at it, since facial close-ups and inner monologues are often hard to incorporate elegantly into our designs. Many great stories have more than one protagonist, and some videogames have more than one player-character.

大多数故事也有一个拮抗剂，也许是敌人，他做了一些事情来提供主张力或者核心冲突这会推动故事的发展。许多游戏让玩家对抗必须击败的敌人，但核心冲突不一定来自人类或怪物；它可能是世界上的一种事态，比如与时间的赛跑。主要紧张局势可以对故事和游戏玩法产生非常积极的影响，集中玩家的注意力并营造兴奋感。

Most stories also have an antagonist, perhaps an enemy, who does something to provide the main tension or core conflict that will drive the story. Many games pit the player against enemies that must be defeated, but the core conflict need not come from people or monsters; it could be a state of affairs in the world, like a race against time. The main tension can have a very positive impact on both story and gameplay, focusing the player’s mind and building excitement.

冲突与叙事的关系可能是一个热门话题。作家 Ursula K. Le Guin 写道：“现代主义写作手册经常将故事与冲突混为一谈。这种简化主义反映了一种文化，这种文化在培养对其他行为选择的无知的同时，还助长了侵略性和竞争性。……冲突是一种行为。在任何人的生活里，还有其他同样重要的行为，例如联系、寻找、失去、承受、发现、离别、改变。” ⁷这份行为列表对于任何寻求探索游戏玩法新领域的游戏设计师来说都是一份礼物。

Conflict’s relationship to storytelling can be a hot-button topic. The author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options.… Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing.”⁷ This list of behaviors is a gift to any game designer seeking to explore new frontiers of gameplay.

我同意人们过分强调了冲突在故事叙述中的作用，并因此产生了负担。但我也相信，如果想在故事叙述中淡化冲突，那么要想吸引观众的注意力，就必须非常努力地用其他方式引起观众的兴趣。

I agree that conflict’s role in storytelling has been overemphasized and brings baggage with it. But I also believe that people who want to deemphasize conflict in their storytelling have to work very hard to create interest in other ways if they’re going to hold their audience’s attention.

故事的主线通常由主人公渴望的某样东西提供，有些讲故事的人称之为外在欲望或想主角为了得到那个东西所采取的步骤，与他们生活的大背景相对照。人生的梦想，推动他们完成故事，让他们接触到构成故事主体的有趣人物和场景。在努力实现目标的过程中，主人公通常会与一些难以看到或难以命名的东西作斗争，这些与他们的性格、局限性和个人成长有关。一些讲故事的人称这是内在欲望或需要，以及主人公如何处理这种隐藏的欲望、成长、克服某些事情、成为一个新人的方式，往往蕴含着故事的真正意义。

The through line of a story is often provided by something that the protagonist longs for, which some storytellers term an external desire or a want. The steps that the protagonist takes to get that thing, set against the greater context of their life’s dream, propels them through the story, bringing them into contact with the interesting characters and scenarios that will make up the body of the story. In the course of trying to achieve their goal, the protagonist usually struggles with something harder to see or to name, something to do with their character, their limitations, and their personal growth. Some storytellers call this an internal desire or a need, and the ways in which the protagonist deals with this hidden desire, to grow, to get past something, to become someone new, often contain the true meaning of the story.

故事的第一部分通常是主人公在家里，周围是现状无论是平凡的世界，对他们来说。然后发生了一些事情，开始推动他们进入故事：这就是所谓的煽动事件主角一开始可能会抗拒，但最终他们还是踏上了旅行让他们遇到新奇或具有挑战性的情况，人物，他们以我们觉得有趣的方式经历和联系。当然，他们在这段旅程中试图实现他们的外在欲望，但随着他们的前进，他们的内在欲望以各种方式受到考验或激活，将他们的旅程引向新的、有趣的方向。讲故事的人会使用以下技巧铺垫为接下来的事情做好准备，植物和收益引导我们继续讲述这个故事。他们会使用逆转让我们感到惊讶，揭示满足我们。他们可能偶尔使用红鲱鱼转移我们的注意力或麦高芬创造故事的动力和连续性。

The first part of the story usually sees the protagonist at home, amid the status quo of whatever is the ordinary world, for them. Then something happens that begins to propel them into the story: this is known as the inciting incident. The protagonist might resist at first, but eventually they embark on a journey that sees them encounter novel or challenging situations and characters, which they move through and relate to in ways that we find interesting to see or hear about. They’re on this journey trying to get to their external desire, of course, but as they move along, their internal desire is tested or activated in various ways, diverting their journey in new and interesting directions. The storyteller will use techniques like foreshadowing to prime us for what’s to come, and plants and payoffs to string us along through the story. They’ll use reversals to surprise us and reveals to satisfy us. They might occasionally use red herrings to divert our attention or a MacGuffin to create story impetus and continuity.

在许多故事中，主角的处境最终会达到危机。似乎一切都失去了；主角的外在欲望永远无法实现。但往往主角的个人成长与其内在欲望的关系在此刻被推到了前台，他们的行为引起了高潮到达目的地。我们看到一切都在这个极具戏剧性的紧张时刻到来，并发现事情将如何发展。主角旅程的最终结果在解决因为它影响着人们的生活和他们所居住的世界。

In many stories, the protagonist’s situation eventually reaches a crisis. It seems like all is lost; the protagonist’s external desire can never be attained. But often the protagonist’s personal growth in relation to their inner desire is pushed to the fore in this moment, and their actions cause a climax to be reached. We see everything come to a head at this point of great dramatic intensity and discover how things will play out. The final result of the protagonist’s journey is shown in the resolution, as it affects the people in their lives and the world they live in.

这个关于故事结构的简短总结使用了来自不同来源的术语，其中许多术语我要感谢我的同事 Irving Belateche 和 Jack Epps Jr.。 您可以阅读和使用多种故事结构方法。其中最著名的可能就是英雄之旅，由 Joseph Campbell 在他的《千面英雄》一书中首创，并由 Christopher Vogler 的《作家之旅：作家的神话结构》推广。英雄之旅是游戏设计师很好的入门故事结构，因为它可以轻松映射到我们许多游戏的任务型结构上。请注意，对英雄之旅的不当使用可能会导致故事陈词滥调，充斥着任何“救世主神话”都会带来的问题。在正确的使用下，它也可以创造出伟大的艺术作品，比如 thatgamecompany 的《旅程》。

This brief summary of story structure uses terms from a variety of sources, and I’m indebted to my colleagues Irving Belateche and Jack Epps Jr. for many of them. There are many approaches to story structure that you can read about and use. Perhaps the most famous of them is the hero’s journey, originated by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces and popularized by Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. The hero’s journey is a good starter story structure for game designers, since it maps easily onto the quest-based structure of many of our games. Be warned that inexpert use of the hero’s journey can lead to clichéd and hackneyed stories, rife with the problems that any “savior myth” smuggles on board. In the right hands, it can also lead to great artworks, like thatgamecompany’s Journey.

Blake Snyder 的《救猫咪！》是一本不错的故事结构入门指南，而 Jack Epps 的《剧本写作就是重写：专业修订的艺术和技巧》一书将教会你很多关于优秀写作的迭代性质的知识。通过自己的研究，你可以发现更多关于故事结构和写作的优秀书籍。要了解不同故事结构专家使用的众多术语，请参阅 Ingrid Sundberg 的《情节结构》，你可以在网上找到，其中包含一个图表，清楚地显示了用于指代我上面描述的元素的许多不同名称及其来源^。8

Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! is a good beginner’s guide to structuring stories, and Jack Epps’s book Screenwriting Is Rewriting: The Art and Craft of Professional Revision will teach you a lot about the iterative nature of good writing. You can discover many more excellent books on story structure and writing through your own research. To see the very many terms used by different story structure experts, refer to Ingrid Sundberg’s “Arch Plot Structure” which you can find online, and which includes a diagram clearly showing the many different names used to refer to the elements I’ve described above, along with their sources.⁸

你可能会感到怀疑，想知道我们从哪里得到了这套讲故事的基本原则。许多伟大的讲故事者并不关心故事结构的讨论。他们只是坐下来开始写作，依靠他们以清晰有趣的方式描述人物和事件的能力，让我们对想象中的人物产生感受，让我们笑或哭，并让我们全神贯注于他们展开的故事。

You might feel skeptical and wonder where we get this set of storytelling fundamentals from. Many great storytellers don’t care for discussions of story structure. They just sit down and start writing, relying on their abilities to describe people and events in a clear and interesting way, to get us to feel things for imaginary people, to make us laugh or cry, and to keep us riveted to their unfolding tale.

但对于游戏设计师来说，我认为，如果我们要成功地协调游戏玩法和故事的起伏能量，我们需要对故事结构有一些基本的了解。我上面描述的组件为你自己的游戏设计和讲故事实践提供了一个起点。像每个讲故事的人一样，你可以自由地挑选、混合和搭配，尝试新事物。如果你遵循这种久经考验的模式，你可能会更快地提高你的讲故事技巧，或者也许你会发现一些你还未考虑过的令人惊叹的新方法，来让你的玩家着迷。

But for game designers, it’s my belief that we need some basic understanding of the structures of story if we are to line up the rising and falling energies of gameplay and story in a successful way. The components that I’ve described above offer a jumping-off point for your own game design and storytelling practice. Like every storyteller, you are free to pick and choose, to mix and match, to try new things. You may advance in your storytelling craft more quickly if you follow this tried-and-tested pattern, or maybe you’ll find amazing new ways of holding your players spellbound that have not yet been considered.

如何改善游戏中的故事

How to Improve the Stories in Your Games

有整本书专门介绍游戏的叙事技巧和叙事设计，你当然应该努力磨练自己作为作家、叙事者和叙事设计师的技能。然而，短期内改善游戏故事的最佳方法非常简单：与作家合作。

There are whole books dedicated to the craft of storytelling and the narrative design of games, and you should certainly strive to hone your own skills as a writer, storyteller, and narrative designer. However, the best thing that you can do in the short term to improve the stories in your games is very simple: collaborate with a writer.

除非你有成功的创意写作经历，否则不要像许多游戏设计师（包括我）那样自以为是，在没有专家帮助的情况下尝试编写游戏。写好文章非常困难。它需要心理治疗师的洞察力、社会学家的细节导向、诗人的抒情和脱口秀喜剧演员的笑话写作能力。无论你住在世界的哪个地方，你身边都有可能不只有一位伟大的作家，而是一群伟大的作家——这些人对对话很敏感（根据我的经验，对话是最难写的）、热爱电子游戏，每月都要付房租。

Unless you have a history of successful creative writing, don’t make the mistake of hubris that many game designers (including me) have made, and try to write your game without expert help. Writing well is incredibly difficult. It requires the insight of a psychotherapist, the detail-orientation of a sociologist, the lyricism of a poet, and the joke-writing ability of a stand-up comic. The chances are that, wherever you live in the world, you’re within a mile or ten of not just one great writer but a whole community of them—people with a good ear for dialogue (one of the hardest things to write, in my experience), a love of videogames, and monthly rent to pay.

过去很难找到了解游戏设计或能够学习了解游戏设计的作家。如今，这两件事都容易多了，因为我们中的许多人都是玩电子游戏长大的，并且热爱电子游戏。你应该花一些时间与你的作家合作，帮助他们了解你的特定游戏是如何运作的，它的需求是什么，以及他们如何融入你的创作过程。但通常，这种时间的投入不仅在伟大的角色、情节和对话方面获得了回报，而且还产生了全新的游戏设计理念。

It used to be hard to find writers who understand game design or could learn to understand it. Nowadays, both things are much easier because so many of us have grown up playing and loving videogames. You should expect to spend some time working with your writer to help them understand how your particular game works, what its needs are, and how they can fit into your creative process. But usually that investment of time pays dividends not only in terms of great characters, plot, and dialogue but also yielding fresh new game design ideas.

尽早找到你的作家——最好是在项目开始时。作家在设计团队中的地位越高，融入到整个设计过程中的程度越高，对团队中的每个人和最终的游戏来说，一切都会越好。将故事改编到现有游戏设计上的游戏很少能取得好成绩。话虽如此，如果你在开发后期才找到作家，也不要惊慌。优秀的作家可以创造奇迹，而仅仅为了完善游戏对话而进行的“改进”就可以完全改变游戏。

Find your writer very early—ideally, at the beginning of your project. The more that a writer is embedded in the design team and integrated into the overall design process, the better everything will be for everyone on the team and for the resulting game. Games that have story retrofitted onto a preexisting game design only occasionally turn out well. That said, don’t panic if you only find your writer late in development. Great writers can work magic, and a “punch up pass” just to polish a game’s dialogue can be completely transformative.

在整个开发过程中，您都应该与作家合作。有时他们会非常忙，有时他们几乎无事可做。根据您正在开发的游戏类型，作家的工作可能在项目完成之前很久就结束了。但根据我的游戏开发经验，在整个开发过程中，新的写作工作一直都在出现，包括环境叙述（关卡中海报或广告牌上的文字，或游戏内物体上的文字）、界面设计（收藏品的名称和描述性“风味文字”）以及游戏之外但与玩家体验相关的材料，例如开发博客文章和社交媒体帖子、广告文案和预告片画外音对话。

You should expect to work with your writer or writers throughout the entire development process. There will be times when they are very busy, and other times when there is little for them to do. Depending on the type of game that you’re developing, there may come a time well before the project is complete when the writer’s work is finished. But in my game development experience, new writing jobs appear all the time throughout development, in environmental narrative (the text on a poster or billboard in a level, or the writing on an in-game object), in interface design (the names and descriptive “flavor text” of collectible objects), and in materials outside of the game but related to the player’s experience, like development blog entries and social media posts, advertising copy, and trailer voiceover dialogue.

也许最重要的是，你的游戏编剧应该有权做出创造性的决定。如果游戏编剧在团队中没有影响力，那么他的明智决定就会被其他人践踏，从而导致游戏玩法和故事无法很好地融合在一起。游戏总监应该支持编剧——不是盲目或无条件的，而是以一种让团队中的每个人都知道他们的工作值得尊重的方式，因为它从根本上影响了玩家的体验。

Perhaps most importantly, your game’s writer should be empowered to make creative decisions. A game writer who isn’t invested with some clout on a team will always have their wise decisions stomped on by others, which leads to a game where gameplay and story don’t hang together well. The game’s director should support the writer—not blindly or unconditionally, but in a way that lets everyone on the team know that their work is to be respected, because it impacts the player’s experience in a fundamental way.

有疑问时…

When in Doubt …

讲故事是一项复杂的工作。有些人将一生奉献给这项事业。作为一名游戏设计师，你可能对故事一点也不感兴趣，这没关系。游戏设计是一种极其广泛的文化形式，并不是每款游戏都需要故事。

Storytelling is a complicated business. Some people devote their whole lives to its craft. As a game designer, you might not be at all interested in story, and that’s fine. Game design is a vastly expansive cultural form, and not every game needs a story.

然而，我坚持我的观点，即我们的大脑在大部分的正常运作中，通过创造叙事来理解我们的生活。即使一款游戏没有故事，它也肯定有某种叙事。国际象棋没有故事，但骑士的形状像马这一事实是一个叙事元素，两个玩家或两个团队之间的推拉也具有叙事形状。

However, I stand by my thought that our minds, in much of their regular functioning, make sense of our lives by creating narratives. Even if a game doesn’t have a story, it certainly has some kind of narrative. Chess doesn’t have a story, but the fact that a knight is shaped like a horse is a narrative element, and the push and pull between two players or two teams has a narrative shape.

因此，在考虑游戏的叙事结构时，请参考亚里士多德，如果有疑问，请为您的游戏（及其每个部分）提供一个好的开头、好的中间部分和好的结尾。这听起来可能很明显，但您会惊讶地发现，我玩过的许多游戏（以及我制作的一些游戏）的故事开头和中间部分都很棒，但结尾却很差劲。您不太可能制作出比赛有开头和中间但没有结尾的竞技游戏（尽管这听起来像是实验性游戏设计的绝佳提示），因此请对您的叙事游戏表现出同样的尊重。

So, when considering the narrative structure of your game, look to Aristotle, and when in doubt, just give your game (and every part of it) a good beginning, a good middle, and a good end. This might sound obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many games I play (and some that I’ve made) whose stories have a great beginning and middle, but a weak ending. You’d be unlikely to create a competitive game whose matches had a beginning and middle but no end (even though that sounds like a great prompt for a piece of experimental game design), so show the same respect to your storytelling games.

这并不是说伟大的故事必须有一个圆满的结局。故事中的开放式结局，即让观众自己得出最终结果的结论，可以和封闭式结局一样有趣和令人满意，封闭式结局对结果没有任何疑问。只要确保以符合之前内容并尊重玩家给予的时间的方式结束游戏即可。

That’s not to say that great stories must have a tidy ending that resolves completely. Open endings in stories, where the audience is left to draw their own conclusions about what ultimately happens, can be just as interesting and satisfying as closed endings, where there is no doubt as to the outcome. Just make sure to close your game in a way that fits what came before and respects the time that your audience of players has given you.

在下一章中，我们将了解如何使用一种称为游戏设计宏的轻量级游戏设计文档来规划游戏玩法和故事的起伏模式。然后，我们可以使用此宏来安排游戏的创作，该阶段称为全面制作。

In the next chapter, we’ll look at how we can plan the rising and falling patterns of gameplay and story using a kind of lightweight game design document called a game design macro. We can then use this macro to schedule the creation of the game in the phase of our process called full production.

2. 1. Irving Belateche，《电影剧本分析：回到未来》，课堂讲座，南加州大学电影艺术学院约翰·威尔斯影视写作系，洛杉矶，2018 年 6 月 11 日。

3. 1.  Irving Belateche, “Film Script Analysis: Back to the Future,” class lecture, John Wells Division of Writing for Screen & Television, USC School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles, June 11, 2018.

4. 2.亚里士多德，《诗学》，26。

5. 2.  Aristotle, Poetics, 26.

6. 3. Lupton，《设计就是讲故事》，21页。

7. 3.  Lupton, Design Is Storytelling, 21.

8. 4 . 古利诺，《剧本创作》，2。

9. 4.  Gulino, Screenwriting, 2.

10. 5.私人通信，2020年5月25日。

11. 5.  Private communication, May 25, 2020.

12. 6.菲利普斯和亨特利，《Dramatica》。

13. 6.  Phillips and Huntley, Dramatica.

14. 7 . 勒奎恩，《Steering the Craft》，146页。

15. 7.  Le Guin, Steering the Craft, 146.

16. 8. Ingrid Sundberg，“什么是拱形图和经典设计？”，2013 年 6 月 5 日，https://ingridsundberg.com/2013/06/05/what-is-arch-plot-and-classic-design/。

17. 8.  Ingrid Sundberg, “What Is Arch Plot and Classic Design?,” June 5, 2013, https://ingridsundberg.com/2013/06/05/what-is-arch-plot-and-classic-design/.

制作全面生产的地图

Making a Map for Full Production

我明智地从一张地图开始，并使故事适合。……另一种方式是让人陷入混乱和不可能之中。

—JRR 托尔金，《JRR 托尔金书信选集》，177。

I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit.… The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities.

—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: A Selection, 177.

托尔金在创作《指环王》时，首先绘制了中土世界的地图，这是他史诗般的奇幻故事的背景，地图上“对距离的刻画十分细致”。1^归还魔戒的故事取决于人、动物、物体和信息在这片土地上移动的速度。托尔金在开始写作之前绘制了地图，因此能够确定故事的一个关键方面——距离——并创作出复杂且结构严谨的故事。

Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings by first devising a map of Middle Earth, the setting for his epic fantasy, with “meticulous care for distances.”¹ The story of the quest to return the One Ring to Mordor hinges on how quickly people, animals, objects, and information can move across the land. By setting a map into place before he began writing, Tolkien was able to be certain about a crucial aspect of his tale—distance—and was able to create his complex and highly structured story.

想象一下整个不列颠群岛的概览图。你可以看到大城市和较大的城镇、一些山脉和森林、高速公路和主要道路——但你看不到大本钟、爱丁堡城堡或我长大的北格洛斯特郡的小镇。然而，你可以使用这样的地图规划穿越英国的旅程，并且可以在旅途中了解旅行的细节。

Consider an overview map of the whole British Isles. You can see the big cities and larger towns, some mountains and forests, and the motorways and major roads—but you can’t see Big Ben, or Edinburgh Castle, or the little town in north Gloucestershire where I grew up. However, you can plan a journey across Britain using a map like this, and you can figure out the details of your travels as you go along.

游戏设计宏是这样的：它是我们游戏设计的概览图，我们可以使用它来指导整个制作过程。使用游戏设计宏，我们可以找到实现出色、精致、完成的游戏目标的最佳途径。它将帮助引导我们的创造力，并防止我们走弯路。

The game design macro is like this: it’s an overview map of our game’s design that we can use to navigate through full production. Using a game design macro, we can find the best path to our goal of an excellent, polished, finished game. It will help guide our creativity and prevent us from going around in circles.

为什么要使用游戏设计宏？

Why Use a Game Design Macro?

游戏设计宏是一份精简的游戏设计文档。它是一份想法矩阵，代表了我们游戏设计的概述。它以紧凑的方式列出了我们游戏的所有重要方面，为我们提供足够的信息来指导项目。它不会纠结于细节，因为随着我们在开发游戏的过程中不断发现新东西，细节很容易发生变化。我们应该能够从游戏设计宏中一目了然地看到项目的重要量化方面：游戏有多少个关卡或地点、有多少个角色、有多少种主要对象类型等等。

A game design macro is a stripped-down game design document. It’s a matrix of ideas that represents an overview of our game’s design. It lists all the important aspects of our game in a compact way, giving us enough information to be able to steer the project. It doesn’t dwell on details, because they are prone to change as we make discoveries while working on our game. We should be able to see at a glance from the game design macro important quantitative aspects of the project: how many levels or locations the game has, how many characters, how many major object types, and so on.

游戏设计宏的概念来自 Mark Cerny，他在 2002 年的 DICE 演讲中讨论了这一概念，他将其称为“方法”的数字游戏开发方法。

The concept of the game design macro comes from Mark Cerny, who discusses it in his 2002 D.I.C.E talk about the approach to digital game development that he dubbed Method.

在 Method 中，传统的设计文档被完全抛弃。相反，设计被分为宏观设计和微观设计。宏观设计是一份五页的文档，它给出了你的游戏所适用的框架，并且是预生产结束时的可交付成果。微观设计就是你的游戏本身，是在生产过程中即时创建的。通过将这两者分开，你可以制作一款既连贯又有趣的创意游戏。

宏观设计在预制作结束时完成。微观设计在制作过程中创建。……这种方法是游戏开发中最危险的神话之一的产物：“最初的愿景越明确越好。” ²

In Method, traditional design documentation is completely discarded. Instead, the design is split into macro and micro designs. The macro design is a five-page document that gives the framework that your game fits into and is a deliverable at the end of preproduction. The micro design is what your game is and is created on the fly during production. By separating these two, you can make a creative game that is still coherent and fun to play.

The macro design is completed by the end of preproduction. The micro design is created during production.… This methodology is the result of one of the most dangerous myths in game development: “The more defined your initial vision, the better.”²

马克继续批评了在开始制作游戏之前需要编写一份长达一百页的游戏设计文档的想法。他告诉我们，我们不仅不需要这份文档来开始我们的游戏，而且我们永远都不需要它。编写这样的文档是一种资源浪费，会让你误以为自己知道的比实际知道的更多。而且，正如马克·塞尼所说，“无论它有多棒，我向你保证：没有玩家会喜欢你的游戏设计文档。” ³

Mark goes on to criticize the idea that we need to write a hundred-page game design document before we start making our game. He tells us that not only do we not need this document to start our game, we don’t need it ever. Writing such a document is a waste of resources and lulls you into thinking that you know more than you actually do. And, as Mark Cerny says, “No matter how great it is, I guarantee you: no player will ever enjoy your game design document.”³

不过，我们确实需要创建一些文档——我们不能盲目地投入全面生产。我们需要一张地图。我们根据创建时发现的内容来制定宏我们的垂直切片。它仅包含我们进入全面生产所需的设计信息和设计决策。

We do have to create some documentation, though—we can’t fly blind into full production. We need a map. We base the macro on what we discover when we create our vertical slice. It contains the design information and design decisions that we need to enter full production, and no more.

Mark Cerny 告诉我，游戏设计宏的概念是为《古惑狼 2：皮质反击战》发明的。我通过研究为《Jak 3》编写的宏详细了解了游戏设计宏，《Jak 3》是我在项目即将结束时参与的。然后，我继续以首席游戏设计师的身份为《Jak X：战斗赛车》和我参与的所有三款《神秘海域》游戏的宏做出贡献。我相信，顽皮狗、Insomniac Games 和其他使用该技术的工作室制作的游戏质量很高，这清楚地表明了游戏设计宏的实用性^。4

Mark Cerny told me that the idea of the game design macro was invented for Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. I learned about the game design macro in detail by studying the one that had been written for Jak 3, a project that I worked on toward its end. I then went on to contribute to the macros as a lead game designer for Jak X: Combat Racing and for all three of the Uncharted games that I worked on. I believe that the good quality of the games created by Naughty Dog, Insomniac Games, and other studios that use the technique clearly shows the usefulness of the game design macro.⁴

游戏设计宏和我们的项目目标

The Game Design Macro and Our Project Goals

游戏设计宏与我们在第 7 章中讨论的项目目标有着重要的关系。你可以将宏视为我们在项目目标中设定的体验目标和设计目标的扩展和更详细的定义。

The game design macro has an important relationship with the project goals that we discussed in chapter 7. You can consider the macro to be an expansion and a more detailed definition of the experience goal and design goals that we set out in our project goals.

有时，我们的项目目标会在预生产过程中发生变化。这可能是因为我们在垂直切片上的工作产生的游戏并不完全符合我们的项目目标，但足够引人注目，以至于我们想遵循新的方向。当这种情况发生时，在开始游戏设计宏之前修改项目目标很重要。最迟，如果你要锁定新的项目目标，你应该在预生产结束时，在完成宏的同时这样做。我们总是希望在进入全面生产时，通过让我们的项目目标和游戏设计宏很好地保持一致，来保持我们的愿景连贯。

Sometimes, our project goals can change partway through preproduction. This might happen because the game that emerges from our work on the vertical slice didn’t exactly match our project goals but was compelling enough that we wanted to follow a new direction. When that happens, it’s important to revise your project goals before starting work on the game design macro. At the very latest, if you’re going to lock in new project goals, you should do so by the end of preproduction, at the same time as you complete the macro. We always want to keep our vision coherent by having our project goals and game design macro line up nicely as we head into full production.

游戏设计宏的两个部分

The Two Parts of a Game Design Macro

在 DICE 演讲中，Mark Cerny 将游戏设计宏描述为两个部分。第一部分是简短的游戏设计概述，总结了游戏的核心元素：游戏玩法的基本元素、游戏中最重要的特殊机制以及游戏情节的简要概述。

In his D.I.C.E. talk, Mark Cerny describes the game design macro as having two parts. The first part is a short game design overview summarizing the core elements of the game: the fundamental elements of gameplay, the most important of the game’s special mechanics, and a brief outline of the game’s plot.

宏观的第二部分是宏观图表，这是一种电子表格或表格，它逐步细分了游戏的各个级别以及每个级别中发生的动作、活动和故事情节。这第二部分通常需要更多的设计工作来创建，而在顽皮狗，宏观图表和游戏设计宏观这两个术语几乎成了同义词。

The second part of the macro is a macro chart, which is a spreadsheet or table that gives a step-by-step breakdown of the levels of the game, and the action, activities, and story beats that take place within each level. This second part typically takes a lot more design effort to create, and at Naughty Dog, the terms macro chart and game design macro became pretty much synonymous.

游戏设计概述

The Game Design Overview

专业游戏开发团队应在创建垂直切片期间或之后创建游戏设计概述文档。同样，它应该是一份相对较短的文档：根据项目规模，长度在 5 到 20 页之间。它应包含游戏中所有最重要的游戏设计和叙事元素的介绍，以及游戏方向的其他重要方面。

Professional game development teams should create a game design overview document during or after the creation of their vertical slice. Again, it should be a relatively short document: between five and twenty pages depending on the scale of the project. It should contain an introduction to all the most important game design and narrative elements in the game, along with other important aspects of the game’s direction.

它应该描述我们在第 10 章中讨论的“三个 C”——角色、镜头和控制，并讨论游戏的主要游戏机制、动词和玩家活动。对于有这些内容的游戏，它应该介绍游戏中的重要角色以及游戏情节的概述（如果有故事）。它应该展示或描述为游戏计划的艺术指导、声音设计、音乐和图形设计，并应阐明游戏的基调和氛围。

It should describe the “three Cs” of character, camera, and control that we discussed in chapter 10, and should discuss the major game mechanics, verbs, and player activities of the game. For a game that has them, it should introduce the important characters in the game along with an overview of the game’s plot (if it has a story). It should show or describe the art direction, sound design, music, and graphic design planned for the game, and should set out the tone and mood of the game.

游戏设计概述是游戏设计宏观的重要组成部分，可帮助团队的创意领导向团队成员、项目利益相关者和任何其他相关方表达他们的想法。因此，它代表了我们在垂直切片中看到的设计元素的一种社会契约。

The game design overview is an important part of the game design macro and helps the creative leadership of the team represent their ideas to their team members, their project stakeholders, and any other interested parties. As such, it represents a kind of social contract about the design elements that we see in the vertical slice.

（在我为期十五周、单学期的课程中，我不会让我的学生创建游戏设计概述。我们可以在垂直切片中轻松地看到、听到和体验游戏的三个 C、核心游戏玩法和美学方向，我不想在游戏开发最紧张的阶段给他们添麻烦。但是，如果我的课程持续一整学年，我肯定会让我的学生撰写游戏设计概述文档，作为创建清晰、引人注目的游戏设计文档并为游戏设定方向的练习。）

(In my fifteen-week, single-semester classes, I do not have my students create a game design overview. We can easily see, hear, and play the three Cs, core gameplay, and aesthetic direction of their games in their vertical slices, and I don’t want to make busywork for them during what is likely to be one of the most intense phases of their game’s development. However, if my class lasted a full academic year, I would certainly have my students write a game design overview document as an exercise in creating clear, compelling game design documentation and in setting direction for their game.)

游戏设计宏观图表

The Game Design Macro Chart

游戏设计宏图是通过详细思考游戏的体验流程并将其记录在电子表格中而制作的。这是创建游戏设计宏图最困难的部分，也是最有价值的部分。它帮助我们就游戏中发生的事情达成一致，是控制项目范围的重要一步。

The game design macro chart is made by thinking through the experience flow of a game in detail and writing it down in a spreadsheet. This is the most difficult part of creating a game design macro and also the most valuable. It helps us to reach an agreement about what’s going in our game and is an important step toward bringing the scope of our project under control.

游戏设计宏观图表由十个或更多的电子表格列组成，并且需要尽可能多的行来足够详细地描述游戏。

The game design macro chart is made up of ten or more spreadsheet columns and as many rows are needed to describe the game in just enough detail.

在这个电子表格中，我们必须描述（用 Mark Cerny 的话来说）“什么样的游戏玩法在游戏中会出现在哪里。”我们还必须注意“你打算使用的每个机制都应该出现在这个图表中。”我们在创建游戏设计宏时的目标是“了解游戏的计划多样性、游戏的范围及其高级结构。” ⁵

In this spreadsheet, we have to describe (in Mark Cerny’s words) “what sort of gameplay goes where in the game.” We also have to take note that “every mechanic that you intend to use should be in this chart.” What we’re aiming for in creating the game design macro is “a knowledge of the planned variety of the game, the scope of the game, its high-level structure.”⁵

电子表格的纵轴代表时间，游戏的最早部分在顶部，游戏的结束部分在底部。（本章后面我将讨论如何使用宏来处理非线性游戏。）电子表格横轴上的列用于列出对游戏每个部分的设计很重要的信息。

The vertical axis of the spreadsheet represents time, with the earliest part of the game at the top, and the end of the game at the bottom. (Later in this chapter I’ll talk about how to use a macro to handle nonlinear games.) The columns along the horizontal axis of the spreadsheet are used to list out information important to the design of each part of the game.

《神秘海域 2：纵横四海》的游戏设计宏是一个大约 70 行的电子表格，它几乎精确地显示了我们在一年半后发布的游戏结构，误差在 5% 或 10% 以内。因此，宏图比在前期制作期间编写的任何一百页的游戏设计都更具体。它将重要的细节固定到位，但它具有足够的抽象程度，因此您不必浪费时间设计后来会更改的设计元素。

The game design macro for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was a spreadsheet around seventy rows long, and it showed the structure of the game that we shipped a year and a half later almost exactly, to within 5 or 10 percent. So, the macro chart is more concrete than any hundred-page game design ever written during preproduction. It pins important details into place, but it has enough of a level of abstraction that you don’t waste time devising design elements that later get changed.

游戏设计宏图的行和列

The Rows and Columns of the Game Design Macro Chart

让我们开始更详细地分析游戏设计宏图。我们将从 Mark Cerny 在 DICE 演讲中给出的一个例子开始。

Let’s start to break down the game design macro chart in greater detail. We’ll start with an example that Mark Cerny gives in his D.I.C.E. talk.

每行描述一个关卡。相关信息因游戏而异，但在（一种可能）情况下，它是关卡的地点、它是 3D 还是 2D 关卡、它包含哪些“奇特”的游戏玩法、玩家必须收集哪些东西才能进入关卡。最后，可以在关卡中收集哪些对象^。6

Each row describes one of the levels. The relevant information changes from game to game, but in (one possible) case, it’s the locale of the level, whether it’s a 3D or 2D level, what “exotic” gameplay it contains, what the player must have collected in order to enter the level. And finally, what objects can be collected in the level.⁶

Mark 的例子来自游戏规模较小的时代。如今，游戏设计宏图中的一行只能描述关卡的一小部分。但 Mark 为我们提供了思考宏图每一行的良好起点。

Mark’s example comes from a time when games were smaller. Today, a single row in a game design macro chart would only describe one small part of a level. But Mark gives us a good starting point to think about each row of the macro.

每行应描述：

Each row should describe:

• 游戏该部分的环境
• The environment of that part of the game
• 环境中的物体和人物
• The objects and characters in the environment
• 那里发生的游戏类型
• The type of gameplay taking place there
• 玩家必须做什么或可以做什么
• What the player has to do or could do there

对于具有叙事成分的游戏，行还应该从故事的角度描述发生的事情。

For games with a narrative component, the row should also describe what happens from a story point of view.

每个游戏都是不同的。当我加入南加州大学时，我知道我想把游戏设计宏带给我的学生，以便更好地制作游戏设计文档。但一开始我很犹豫：宏能用来描述各种各样的游戏吗，而不仅仅是我曾经做过的那种角色动作故事叙述游戏？

Every game is different. When I joined USC, I knew that I wanted to bring the game design macro to my students as a better way of making game design documentation. But I was hesitant at first: could the macro be used to describe a wide variety of games, not just the kind of character-action storytelling games that I had worked on?

令人高兴的是，我发现这个问题的答案是肯定的。几乎每种类型的游戏的设计都可以在电子表格中得到总结预制作结束。创建游戏设计宏图是检查任何游戏结构和掌握其范围的好方法。

Happily, I’ve discovered that the answer to this question is a resounding yes. The design of most every type of game benefits from being summarized in a spreadsheet at the end of preproduction. Creating a game design macro chart is a great way of examining any game’s structure and getting a handle on its scope.

游戏设计宏图表模板

A Game Design Macro Chart Template

图 17.1是一个模板，可帮助您开始创建游戏设计宏图表。该模板实际上只是一个电子表格，每列都有一个标题。根据需要添加尽可能多的行来描述您的游戏。

Figure 17.1 is a template to help you get started in creating a game design macro chart. The template is really just a spreadsheet, with a heading for each column. Add as many rows as you need to describe your game.

不同风格的游戏可能需要不同的游戏设计宏观图表标题，但这组标题是一个很好的起点。您可以随意创建符合您需求的标题。以下是除玩家目标、设计目标和情感节奏之外的大多数列的描述，我将在最后的各自部分中详细描述它们。

Different styles of game might need different game design macro chart headings, but this set is a good starting point. Feel free to create headings that match your needs. Here’s a description of most of the columns, apart from Player Goal, Design Goal, and Emotional Beat, which I’ll describe in detail in their own section at the end.

玩家目标、设计目标和情感节奏

Player Goal, Design Goal, and Emotional Beat

受我的朋友艾米·亨尼格 (Amy Hennig) 的角色动作游戏设计理念的影响，我开发了这些列标题来帮助我们思考游戏设计的层次性。

Influenced by the character-action game design ideas of my friend Amy Hennig, I developed these column headings to help us to think through the layered nature of a game’s design.

玩家目标、设计目标和情感节奏之间关系的示例

An Example of the Relationship between Player Goal, Design Goal, and Emotional Beat

(a) 玩家感知或为自己设定的目标、(b) 游戏设计师对游戏某一部分的目标以及 (c) 游戏为玩家产生的情感体验之间的复杂关系是游戏设计艺术的关键部分。让我们看一个玩家目标、设计目标和情感节奏之间关系的例子。

This complex relationship between (a) the goals that the player perceives or sets for themselves, (b) the goals that the game designer has for a part of the game, and (c) the emotional experiences that the game produces for the player is a key part of the art of game design. Let’s look at an example of the relationship between player goals, design goals, and emotional beats.

在《神秘海域 2：纵横四海》的开头，我们的主角内森·德雷克在一辆失事的火车车厢中醒来，这辆车悬在悬崖边上，悬崖位于冰冻的喜马拉雅山脉的致命深渊之上。玩家通过一段简短的电影认识了德雷克，他们看到他受伤了。希望他痛苦不堪的脸的特写镜头足以引起玩家的同情。

At the beginning of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, our protagonist, Nathan Drake, wakes up in a wrecked train car which is dangling over the edge of a cliff above a fatally deep drop in the frozen Himalayan mountains. The player is introduced to Drake through a brief cinematic, and they see that he is wounded. Hopefully, the close-up of his pain-wracked face is enough to begin to elicit the player’s sympathy.

片刻之后，德雷克从座位上摔了下来，从垂直悬挂的火车车厢中摔了一百英尺，他设法抓住了扭曲的栏杆，痛苦地从栏杆上弹了下来，却被挂在车厢的最底部。现在玩家明白了德雷克的困境，希望我们能激励他们帮助他摆脱困境。这很自然地引发​​了一场球员目标。玩家可以清楚地看到，Drake 根本无路可走：他下面的落差太大了。唯一的逃脱方法就是向上攀爬。

Moments later, Drake tumbles from his seat, falls a hundred feet through the vertically suspended train car, and—managing to grab on to a twisted railing as he painfully bounces off it—is left hanging on to the very bottom of the car. Now that the player understands Drake’s predicament, hopefully we’ve inspired them to help him get out of this mess. This very naturally sets up a player goal. The player can see clearly that there’s no way down for Drake: the drop below him is too deep. The only way to escape is to climb upward.

许多（但不是全部）电子游戏玩家会自然地偏转控制器上的左摇杆，然后德雷克开始移动。栏杆的设计表明他只能向左移动，当他这样做时，他会绕过一个角落。玩家现在可以从视觉设计中再次看到，他们可以让他向上攀爬。玩家开始实现他们为自己设定的目标。

Many (though not all) videogame players will naturally deflect the left thumbstick on the controller, and Drake begins to move. The design of the railing suggests that he can only move to the left, and when he does so, he moves around a corner. The player can now see, again from the visual design, that they can make him climb upward. The player is beginning to achieve the goal they set for themselves.

当然，我们设计目标是让玩家将 Drake 带到安全的地方。但更大的设计目标是教会玩家我们游戏的核心机制。当玩家帮助 Drake 爬上被毁坏的火车车厢时，我们让他们经历一系列精心设计的动作，在火车车厢中上行、下行和穿过，使用屏幕上的提示介绍新的按钮按下操作，这些按钮将激活 Drake 的各种攀爬、跳跃和摆动能力。玩家将在游戏的其余部分使用这些能力，而这也是他们第一次学习这些能力的地方。

Of course, one part of our design goal was to have the player get Drake to safety. But a bigger design goal was to teach the player our game’s core mechanics. As the player helps Drake climb the ruined train car, we put them through a carefully staged sequence of moves, traveling up, around, and through the train car, using on-screen prompts to introduce new button presses that will activate Drake’s various climbing, jumping, and swinging abilities. The player will use these abilities throughout the rest of the game, and this is where they learn them first.

因此，我们的设计目标是为玩家提供教程。许多电子游戏都是从教程级别开始的，你可能想知道这有什么大不了的。这个序列的巧妙之处在于情绪节拍游戏的这一部分。德雷克在攀爬时发生了意想不到的、几乎是灾难性的事情：一块碎片从他身边坠落，火车座椅在他悬挂时让路，他紧紧抓住的一根管子向意想不到的方向摆动。所有这些都创造了惊喜、恐惧和兴奋，并以强弱节奏的模式加剧了玩家的紧张感。即使我们的理性思维知道我们的主角会成功，我们的情感思维也会被上演的场景所欺骗，从而产生怀疑戏剧性地，我们大脑的两个部分都渴望看到接下来会发生什么。这就是讲故事的原理。

So, our design goal here is to provide the player with a tutorial. Many videogames start with a tutorial level, and you might be wondering what the big deal is here. The finesse of this sequence comes with the emotional beats for this part of the game. Unexpected and near-disastrous things happen as Drake climbs: a chunk of debris plummets past him, a train seat gives way as he hangs from it, a pipe that he’s clinging to swings around in an unexpected direction. All of this creates surprise, fear, and excitement, and ratchets up the tension for the player in a pattern of upbeats and downbeats. Even if our rational minds know that our protagonist will make it through, our emotional minds can be tricked into doubting it by staging the scene dramatically, and both parts of our mind are keen to see what happens next. This is how storytelling works.

通过将玩家目标“让德雷克安全”与我们的设计目标“教会玩家游戏的核心遍历机制”以及“惊讶和恐惧”的情感节奏相结合，我们能够创建一个教程级别，吸引玩家进入游戏并在他们没有意识到的情况下教会他们一些东西。

By combining the player goal of “get Drake to safety” with our design goal of “teach the player the core traversal mechanics of the game” and the emotional beats of “surprise and fear,” we were able to create a tutorial level that drew the player into the game and taught them things without them even realizing that they were learning.

在《神秘海域 2》的开头，玩家通常只是以为自己已经踏上了一段激动人心的冒险之旅。他们可能从未想过我们设计师刚刚教给他们什么，或者他们将如何在游戏的后续部分使用这些知识。设计师从不冒着疏远玩家的风险，让他们经历繁琐的教程序列，然后才能真正开始玩游戏。

At the beginning of Uncharted 2, players typically just think they’ve been launched into the middle of an exciting adventure. They may not ever think about what we, the designers, have just taught them, or how they will use that knowledge in later parts of the game. Designers never run the risk of alienating the player by making them go through a heavy-handed tutorial sequence before they can really start to play the game.

每款游戏都有这种机会以优雅而有趣的方式教导新玩家，而在这里创造整个游戏精彩瞬间的可能性是无穷无尽的。通过将我们对游戏每个部分的理解和规划分解为对玩家目标、设计目标和情感节奏的考虑，我们可以更深入地了解我们在游戏中试图做什么，并可以发明巧妙的新方法来创造独特的游戏玩法和叙事体验。

Every game has this kind of opportunity to teach its new players in elegant and playful ways, and the extended possibilities here—for creating great moments throughout the entirety of a game—are endless. By breaking down our understanding about and planning for each part of our game into a consideration of player goals, design goals, and emotional beats, we can come to a deeper understanding of what we’re trying to do in our game and can invent clever new ways of creating unique gameplay and storytelling experiences.

游戏设计宏的优势

The Advantages of a Game Design Macro

编写游戏设计宏而不是冗长的游戏设计文档有两个主要优点。第一是交流游戏设计理念，第二是协助安排项目整个制作阶段的时间安排。

There are two chief advantages to writing a game design macro instead of a lengthy game design document. The first is in communicating game design ideas, and the second is in assisting in the scheduling of the full production phase of the project.

游戏设计宏已成定局

The Game Design Macro Is Set in Stone

游戏设计宏在预制作结束时交付，代表游戏团队创意领导对项目规模上限以及内容和结构的明确承诺。预制作结束后，不应在游戏设计宏中添加任何重要的功能或内容，除非删除其他内容。

The game design macro is delivered at the end of preproduction and represents a definitive commitment by the game team’s creative leadership to an upper limit for the size of the project, and to its content and structure. Nothing significant in terms of features or content should be added to the game design macro after the end of preproduction without taking something else out.

这意味着游戏设计宏是应对“范围蔓延”的绝佳方式，这是一个古老的游戏开发问题，开发人员对新想法感到兴奋，并在完整制作过程中将其添加到游戏设计中。范围蔓延（以及称为“功能蔓延”的范围蔓延类型）会以不受控制的方式延长项目，有时甚至会阻止项目完成。我们将在第 28 章中再次讨论功能蔓延。

This means the game design macro is an excellent way of combating “scope creep,” the age-old game development problem where developers get excited about new ideas and add them into the game’s design during full production. Scope creep—and the type of scope creep known as “feature creep”—extends a project in an uncontrolled way and can sometimes prevent it from ever being finished. We’ll look at feature creep again in chapter 28.

这并不是说在全面生产过程中设计永远不会发生变化：我们稍后会讨论在全面生产过程中我们可以（并且必须）保持灵活思考的方式。但是通过认真对待游戏设计宏观，并提醒自己它是一成不变的，我们朝着控制项目迈出了重要一步。在预生产结束后，总会出现令人兴奋的新想法，但除非我们的设计出现重大失败，否则我们应该坚持现有的东西并努力使其变得完美。我们可以将这些新想法留到下一个项目中。

This is not to say that design changes can never happen during full production: we’ll look later at the ways in which we can (and must) keep thinking flexibly during full production. But by taking the game design macro seriously, and reminding ourselves that it’s set in stone, we take a major step toward bringing our project under control. Exciting new ideas will always come along after the end of preproduction, but unless our design is failing in a major way, we should stick with what we have and work to make it superb. We can save those new ideas for our next project.

此外，由于宏仅以宏观方式指定设计，因此进行微观设计的开发人员仍然有很大的创造空间。机会是无穷无尽的：我们当然会从宏中获得约束，但正如每个优秀的设计师都知道的那样，约束会激发创造力，而不是阻碍创造力。用 Mark Cerny 的话来说：

Furthermore, because the macro only specifies the design in a macroscopic way, there is still a huge amount of room for creativity on the part of the developers doing the micro design. The opportunities are endless: we get a constraint from the macro, to be sure, but as every good designer knows, a constraint spurs creativity, rather than blocking it. In the words of Mark Cerny:

尽管你的前期制作可能已经很出色，但你仍然会在制作过程中学到一些东西。某些技术、相机、游戏玩法可能比其他的更好。因此，只要你不违反宏观设计，你就可以在制作过程中提升游戏的最新水平，并确信你不会破坏体验的连续性或一致性^。14

As good as your preproduction may have been, you’ll still learn things in production. Certain techniques, cameras, gameplays, may work better than others. So, so long as you don’t violate your macro design, you can advance the state of the art in the game during production with confidence that you will not break the continuity or consistency of the experience.¹⁴

虽然在预制作结束后不应再向宏中添加任何内容（除非在非常特殊的情况下），但可以删除或移动某些内容，因为这不会对计划产生太大影响。只需更改游戏中元素的顺序，您就可能找到解决游戏设计问题的创造性方法或改进故事的方法。《神秘海域 2：纵横四海》开头的火车失事序列按时间顺序发生在游戏事件的中间，直到预制作结束后的某个时间才被移到游戏设计宏图的开头^。15

While nothing should be added to the macro after the end of preproduction, except under very special circumstances, things can be removed or moved around, since that shouldn’t impact the schedule much. By simply changing the order of the elements in your game, you might find creative solutions to game design problems or ways of improving your story. The in medias res train wreck sequence that opens Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, which chronologically takes place in the middle of the events of the game, was not moved to the beginning of the game design macro chart until sometime after the end of preproduction.¹⁵

游戏设计宏是游戏设计圣经吗？

Is the Game Design Macro a Game Design Bible?

有时你会听到游戏开发者谈论“游戏设计圣经”，但要小心，并检查以确保你理解他们在说什么。他们可能在谈论一个老式的、太大而无用的游戏设计文档。或者他们可能指的是游戏设计宏：要么只是游戏设计概述，要么是整个两部分宏，包括宏图表。

You’ll sometimes hear game developers talk about a “game design bible,” but be wary, and check to make sure you understand what they’re talking about. They might be talking about an old-fashioned, too-big-to-be-useful game design document. Or they might be referring to a game design macro: either just the game design overview, or the whole two-part macro including a macro chart.

另外，请注意不要将游戏设计宏与电影、电视、漫画书和小说中使用的“编剧指南”或“故事圣经”混淆。这些是大型的世界构建文档，列出了广阔的虚构宇宙的正典、传说和基调。一个著名的例子是吉恩·罗登贝里在准备制作该系列时编写的“星际迷航：下一代编剧/导演指南” ^。16

Also, be careful not to confuse the game design macro with the “writers’ guide” or “story bible” used in the worlds of film, television, comic books, and fiction. These are large worldbuilding documents laying out the canon, lore, and tone of an expansive fictional universe. A famous example is the “Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers’/Directors’ Guide” that Gene Roddenberry wrote in preparing to make the series.¹⁶

故事圣经在规划知识产权特许经营时必不可少，它们与游戏设计概述在总结故事、角色和世界方面有一些共同之处，但它们的大小和范围使它们与用于规划单个游戏项目的重点设计宏截然不同。也就是说，如果你正在开发的游戏是大型新娱乐特许经营的一部分，你和你的同事当然应该为你正在规划的新世界创建一个故事圣经。

Story bibles are essential in the planning of intellectual property franchises and have something in common with a game design overview in the way that they summarize story, characters, and world, but their size and scope make them quite different from the focused design macro used to plan a single game project. That said, if you are working on a game that is part of the creation of a major new entertainment franchise, you and your colleagues should of course create a story bible for the new world you’re planning.

您可能现在感到害怕，因为为您的游戏制定全面的计划似乎是一项艰巨的任务。在下一章中，我们将介绍一些简单实用的技术，您可以使用这些技术开始创建游戏设计宏图。

You might be feeling intimidated right now, by the seemingly gargantuan task of creating a comprehensive plan for your game. In the next chapter, we’ll look at some easy and practical techniques that you can use to get started in the creation of a game design macro chart.

2. 1.托尔金，《JRR托尔金书信集》，177页。

3. 1.  Tolkien, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, 177.

4. 2. Mark Cerny，“DICE 峰会 2002”，https://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=QOAW9ioWAvE，28:51。

5. 2.  Mark Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOAW9ioWAvE, 28:51.

6. 3. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，28:58。

7. 3.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 28:58.

8. 4.Ted Price，《事后分析：Insomniac Games 的《Ratchet & Clank》》，Gamasutra，2003 年 6 月 13 日，https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131251/postmortem_insomniac_games_.php。

9. 4.  Ted Price, “Postmortem: Insomniac Games’ Ratchet & Clank,” Gamasutra, June 13, 2003, https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131251/postmortem_insomniac_games_.php.

10. 5. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，31:54。

11. 5.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 31:54.

12. 6. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，31:54。

13. 6.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 31:54.

14. 7. Csikszentmihalyi，《流》，67页。

15. 7.  Csikszentmihalyi, Flow, 67.

16. 8 . Anthropy 和 Clark，《游戏设计词汇》，5。

17. 8.  Anthropy and Clark, A Game Design Vocabulary, 5.

18. 9 . Luhn，《最好的故事获胜》，xxv。

19. 9.  Luhn, The Best Story Wins, xxv.

20. 10. Schell，《游戏设计的艺术》，297。

21. 10.  Schell, The Art of Game Design, 297.

22. 11. Allgeier，《导演视频游戏》，#33。

23. 11.  Allgeier, Directing Video Games, #33.

24. 12. Brian Allgeier，“提供结构：宏文档如何确保项目按计划进行”，Directing Video Games，2017 年 8 月 10 日，http://www.directingvideogames.com/2017/08/01/provide-structure/。

25. 12.  Brian Allgeier, “Provide Structure: How Macro Documents Keep a Project on Course,” Directing Video Games, August 10, 2017, http://www.directingvideogames.com/2017/08/01/provide-structure/.

26. 13. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，32：53。

27. 13.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 32:53.

28. 14. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，35:55。

29. 14.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 35:55.

30. 15. “以 in medias res （古典拉丁语：‘进入事物的中心’）开头的叙事作品在情节中间展开。……通常，解说被绕过，并通过对话、倒叙或对过去事件的描述逐渐填充。”“In Medias Res”，维基百科，https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res。

31. 15.  “A narrative work beginning in medias res (Classical Latin: “into the middle of things”) opens in the midst of the plot.… Often, exposition is bypassed and filled in gradually, through dialogue, flashbacks or description of past events.” “In Medias Res,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_medias_res.

32. 16.吉恩·罗登贝瑞 (Gene Roddenberry)，《星际迷航：下一代编剧/导演指南》，1987 年 9 月 8 日，https://www.roddenberry.com/media/vault/TNG-WritersDirectorsGuide.pdf。

33. 16.  Gene Roddenberry, “Star Trek: The Next Generation Writers’/Directors’ Guide,” September 8, 1987, https://www.roddenberry.com/media/vault/TNG-WritersDirectorsGuide.pdf.

宏观图表的粒度

The Granularity of the Macro Chart

宏图的粒度是指其细节程度。每个游戏设计师都必须决定宏图的粒度，尽量使其足够详细，但不要太详细。

The granularity of a macro chart refers to the level of detail that it has. Every game designer will have to make a decision about the granularity of their macro chart, trying to make it detailed enough but not too detailed.

较短的游戏可以有更详细的宏观图表；较长的游戏则需要较低级别的细节。您为宏观图表使用的具体细节级别由您决定，但请记住，不要陷入以后可能会改变的细节中。

A shorter game could have a more detailed macro chart; a longer game will require a lower level of detail. Exactly what level of detail you use for your macro chart is up to you, but remember, don’t get bogged down in details that might change later.

例如， 《神秘海域 2》和《神秘海域 3》的宏观图表中的每一行代表大约 10 到 15 分钟的游戏时间。相比之下，在我的课堂上，学生制作一款十分钟的游戏，宏观图表中的每一行代表大约三十秒到一分钟的游戏时间。对于我的学生来说，这是一个有用的设计练习，让他们在规划时比设计更大、更长的游戏时更加细致。

For example, each row in the macro charts for Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 represent about ten to fifteen minutes of gameplay. By contrast, in my classes, where students are making a ten-minute game, each row in the macro chart represents about thirty seconds to one minute of gameplay. It’s a useful design exercise for my students to get a little more micro in their planning than they would when designing a larger, longer game.

编写宏图表时，一个好的经验法则是避免将太多不同的事件堆积到电子表格的同一行中。尽可能将离散事件分成宏中的不同行。如果您发现在某个单元格中写了一个短段落，则可能表明该行应该分成两行或更多行。

A good rule of thumb to use when writing a macro chart is to avoid piling too many different events into the same row in the spreadsheet. Break discrete events out into separate rows in the macro whenever you can. If you find that you’ve written a short paragraph in any given cell, that’s probably a sign that that row should be broken out into two or more rows.

尽量让宏观图表简洁。Brian Allgeier 建议：“宏观设计应该保持高水平，将更详细的信息留给支持文档，如故事脚本和设计文档。团队成员需要能够轻松引用它并快速了解游戏元素是如何组合在一起的。” ¹

Do your best to keep the macro chart concise. Brian Allgeier advises: “The Macro Design should stay high level and leave more detailed information to supporting documents like the story scripts and design documents. Team members need to be able to easily reference it and quickly understand how the elements of the game are structured together.”¹

对游戏设计宏图进行排序

Sequencing the Game Design Macro Chart

编写游戏设计宏图表使您有机会根据游戏的顺序规划游戏的流程，我们通常从三个方面考虑：游戏事件的顺序、叙述事件的顺序以及地点的顺序（您的关卡，即游戏玩法和叙述发生的空间）。

Writing a game design macro chart gives you a chance to plan out your game’s flow in terms of the sequencing of the game, which we usually consider in three ways: the sequence of gameplay events, the sequence of narrative events, and the sequencing of place (of your levels, the spaces in which both the gameplay and narrative take place).

游戏玩法排序

Sequencing Gameplay

在考虑游戏事件的顺序时，一个好的起点是游戏机制的引入顺序以及玩家如何学习它们。创造性的机会立即由此产生。假设你的角色可以跑和跳。大多数游戏会教玩家先跑后跳，但如果我们以某种方式教玩家先跳后跑，会不会感觉更新鲜、更有趣？

A good place to start when considering the sequence of gameplay events is the order in which the game mechanics are introduced and how the player learns them. Creative opportunities immediately arise out of this. Let’s say that your character can run and jump. Most games teach a player to run before they jump, but would it feel fresher and more interesting if we somehow taught the player to jump first and then to run?

当我们介绍游戏机制时，我们会将它们组合成设置，以创建有趣的游戏玩法，让玩家在整个游戏过程中保持兴趣。设置是游戏元素的集合，以引起玩家兴趣的方式排列。设置是游戏玩法的逻辑单元。一个非常简单的设置可能是一个坑，里面有一些尖刺。如果你掉进坑里，你可以重新开始关卡；如果你跳过坑，你可以继续游戏。更复杂的设置可能涉及一个载着敌人上下移动的平台，前面的路上会射出一些毒镖。你必须仔细安排你的动作，以便跳跃、击败敌人、避开毒镖并继续前进。

As we introduce our game mechanics, we combine them in setups to create the interesting variety of gameplay that will sustain the player throughout the course of the game. A setup is a collection of game elements, arranged in such a way as to create interest for the player. Setups are logical units of gameplay. A very simple setup might be a pit with some spikes in it. If you fall into the pit, you restart the level; if you jump over the pit, you can proceed through the game. A more complex setup could involve a platform carrying an enemy moving up and down, with some poison darts being shot across the path ahead. You have to time your moves carefully, so as to make the jumps, defeat the enemy, avoid the poison darts, and move onward.

通过查看《超级马里奥兄弟》世界 1-1 一开始设计精美的设置，我们可以清楚地了解什么是设置，如图 18.3所示。

We can clearly understand what a setup is by looking at the very nicely designed setup at the very beginning of Super Mario Bros. World 1–1, shown in figure 18.3.

这种特殊的游戏元素安排创造了一种有趣的情况，既有挑战性又没有太多危险。正如 Anna Anthropy 和 Naomi Clark 在《游戏设计词汇》中所描述的那样，这种《超级马里奥兄弟》的设置为玩家创造了一个学习机会，学习是自然、自由和有趣的^。2

This particular arrangement of gameplay elements creates a playful situation that provides a challenge without too much danger. As Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark describe in A Game Design Vocabulary, this Super Mario Bros. setup creates a learning opportunity for the player, where the learning is natural, free form, and fun.²

玩家可以从下方撞击“问号”方块或“砖块”，看看会发生什么。他们可以收集蘑菇，变得更大、更强大。他们可以从侧面撞击 Goomba 怪物，受到一些伤害，或者弹到它身上并摧毁它。设计师精心设计的元素的放置安排与角色能力的设计参数（角色可以跳多远、多高、多快）有关，这样空间既不会太狭窄也不会太开阔。根据你选择在何时何地奔跑和跳跃，你可以优雅地通过这个设置，也可以陷入困境。

The player can bash into a “question mark” block or a “bricks” block from below to find out what happens. They can collect a mushroom and become big and more powerful. They can bash into the Goomba monster from the side and take some damage or bounce on it and destroy it. The placement of the elements that the designers carefully arranged has a relationship with the design parameters of the character’s abilities—how long, high, and quickly they can jump—so that the space is neither too constrained nor too open. Depending on where and when you choose to run and jump, you’ll sail through this setup gracefully or get into a pickle.

设计师创建了一系列连续的设置，随着时间的推移逐渐增加和减少游戏难度，从而形成了游戏设计师经常使用的“上升锯齿”难度模式，Ernest Adams 在其著作《游戏设计基础》中对此进行了描述。“每个游戏关卡的难度都略低于前一关结束时的难度，并且在每个关卡的过程中增加难度。……这种锯齿形状为游戏的整个过程创造了良好的节奏。” ³

Designers create sequences of successive setups to gradually increase and decrease the difficulty of gameplay over time, creating the “rising sawtooth” pattern of difficulty regularly used by game designers, and described by Ernest Adams in his book Fundamentals of Game Design. “Start each game level at a perceived difficulty somewhat lower than that at which the preceding level ended, and increase the difficulty during the course of each level as well.… This sawtooth shape creates good pacing over the course of the game.”³

游戏设计师有时会犯的一个错误是过快增加游戏设置的难度。由于我们对游戏设计元素非常熟悉，并且非常擅长玩自己的游戏，所以我们倾向于直接设置一些复杂程度超出玩家能力范围的设置。使用游戏设计宏图进行系统规划是应对这种倾向的好方法，而定期与新玩家进行游戏测试可以让我们确保正确衡量游戏难度。

A mistake that game designers sometimes make is to increase the difficulty of their setups too quickly. Because we’re so familiar with the elements of our game’s design, and so skilled at playing our own game, we have a tendency to jump ahead to setups with a degree of complexity beyond what our players can handle. Methodical planning, using a game design macro chart, is a good way to counter this tendency, and regular playtesting with new players allows us to be sure that we’re gauging our difficulty correctly.

还有其他游戏顺序考虑因素。你的游戏中是否有 Boss，它们如何使用？其他特殊的游戏顺序如何融入游戏中？玩家可以在开放世界中自由移动，还是只能沿着线性路径移动？如果玩家角色可以接受任务，他们一次只能选择和接受一个任务，还是可以有多个任务？如果他们获得了金钱或经验值等资源，这些资源可以随时使用，还是只能在游戏中的关键时刻使用？当我们编写游戏设计宏图表时，我们需要对这些重要问题给出答案。

There are other gameplay sequencing considerations. Are there bosses in your game, and how are they used? How do other special sequences of gameplay fit into the game? Can the player move freely around an open world, or are they constrained to a linear path? If the player-character can accept missions, can they only choose and accept one at a time, or can they have multiple missions? If they earn a resource like money or experience points, can these be spent at any time, or only at key moments in the game? We’re invited to come up with answers to these important questions when we write a game design macro chart.

完善宏观图表

Making the Macro Chart Complete

宏观图表应该包括游戏的每个部分，包括前端以及所有菜单和界面.这包括标题屏幕你的游戏、你的团队的动画标识以及您想要添加的任何其他“宣传视频”（徽标），用于显示您的出版商、创意合作伙伴、技术许可人或大学计划的名称。它包括暂停屏幕，选项屏幕，加载屏幕以及任何“游戏结束”屏幕您想要包含的内容。它还包括一个屏幕或序列，显示学分适合你的游戏。

The macro chart should include every single part of your game, including the front end and all its menus and interfaces. This includes the title screen for your game, your team’s animating logo, and any other “bumpers” (logos) that you want to include to show the name of your publisher, creative partners, technology licensors, or university program. It includes the pause screen, options screens, loading screens, and any “game over” screens you want to include. It also includes a screen or sequence showing the credits for your game.

重申一下：所有这些都属于你的游戏设计宏观图表。当人们意识到制作所有这些必不可少、容易被忽视的游戏部分需要多长时间时，他们有时会感到震惊。最好在预制作结束时而不是项目结束时意识到这一点，因为那时还有时间规划和构建完成游戏所需的一切。

To reiterate: all these things belong in your game design macro chart. People are sometimes startled when they realize how long it’s going to take to create all these essential, easy-to-overlook parts of their game. It’s better to have this realization at the end of preproduction than at the end of the project, while there’s still time to plan and build everything needed to make the game complete.

微设计

Micro Design

我们正在进行的宏观设计工作与微观设计形成对比，微观设计是我们以后开发游戏时必须完成的所有细节工作。我们将根据宏观设计制定的框架进行微观设计。如果我们的团队规模较大，这项工作将由游戏设计师与其他学科的工匠一起完成。如果我们的团队规模较小，我们将自己完成。

This macro design work that we’re doing is contrasted with the micro design, which is all of the detailed work we will have to do later to build out our game. We’ll base our micro design on the framework laid out by the macro design. If we’re on a larger team, this work will be done by our game’s designers, working together with the artisans in the other disciplines. If we’re on a small team, we’ll do it ourselves.

微设计通常是从宏观设计中抽取一行，然后将其扩展为关卡布局、物体放置、敌人描述和行为、谜题设计和叙事机制等细节。在 20 世纪 90 年代和 21 世纪，我工作的团队会通过在纸上或 Adob​​e Illustrator 中创建详细的关卡布局图来实现这一点，但如今更常见的是在白板上进行一些快速的序列规划，然后使用占位符游戏元素直接在工具中构建块网格（白盒/灰盒/块状）关卡。更详细的支持游戏然后可以根据需要创建设计文档，通常采用流程图和列表的形式。

Creating micro design usually proceeds by taking a single line from the macro and expanding it with details about level layout, object placements, enemy descriptions and behaviors, puzzle designs, and narrative mechanisms. In the 1990s and 2000s, the teams I worked on would do this by creating detailed level layout maps on paper or in Adobe Illustrator, but today it’s more usual to do some quick sequence planning on a whiteboard, and then build blockmesh (whitebox/graybox/blockout) levels directly in the tools, using placeholder gameplay elements. More detailed supporting game design documentation, usually in the form of flowcharts and lists, can then be created as necessary.

微设计通常是在即时的基础上创建的，这样我们就不会浪费时间开发稍后会更改的细节。即时对您的团队意味着什么取决于您。通常，我们希望在微设计方面取得足够大的进展，这样我们就不会给团队的其他部分造成瓶颈，尤其是当微设计团队由于某种原因而放慢速度时。

The micro design is usually created on a just-in-time basis, so that we don’t waste time developing details that will later get changed. What just-in-time means for your team is up to you. Generally, we want to get far enough ahead with our micro design so that we don’t create a bottleneck for other parts of our team, especially if the micro design teams get slowed down for some reason.

非线性游戏和游戏设计宏观图表

Nonlinear Games and the Game Design Macro Chart

让我们讨论如何为非线性游戏创建游戏设计宏图。显然，电子表格的二维空间适合规划线性游戏，这些游戏以从 A 到 B 再到 C 的单向顺序进行。但是，宏图也可用于规划可能从 A 流向 B或C 的分支游戏，或可能以 B、C 或 A 的任意顺序进行的开放世界游戏。

Let’s discuss the creation of a game design macro chart for a nonlinear game. Obviously, the two-dimensional space of a spreadsheet is good for planning out linear games, which flow in a one-way sequence from A to B to C. However, a macro chart can also be used to plan out branching games that might flow from A to B or C, or open-world games that could take place in any order of B, C, or A.

我很高兴看到我班上的学生们将宏应用于多种不同类型的游戏，具有不同类型的游戏进程。宏的优势在于它的二维空间，其中的元素可以以网格形式排列，以紧凑的方式在页面上全面列出它们，并显示它们之间的关系。

I’ve been pleased to see students in my classes adapt the macro to many different types of games, with different types of game progression. The advantage of the macro is its two-dimensional space, where elements can be gridded to list them comprehensively in a compact way on the page and to show relationships between them.

对于具有分支结构的游戏（从 A 到 B 或 C），只需将各个分支逐一列出并找到一种方法来表明它们如何链接在一起就很容易了。当然，每个分支的内容都可以描述，就像线性游戏一样。

For a game with a branching structure, A to B or C, it’s easy just to list the various branches one below the other and find a way to indicate how they link together. The content of each branch can be described, of course, just as it would be for a linear game.

对于具有开放世界结构的游戏，您可能会以任何顺序遇到关卡 A、B 和 C，您面临的挑战会稍微大一些，但通常您可以在宏观图表中将事物组织成逻辑组。一个好的方法是将宏观图表分为两部分。第一部分包含游戏机制列表及其与之交互的对象。第二部分包含地点列表以及这些地点包含的物体。将宏观图表的两部分关联起来将反映出当玩家角色获得某些能力时世界向玩家开放的方式。

For a game with an open-world structure, where you might encounter levels A, B, and C in any order, you have a slightly bigger challenge on your hands, but there are usually logical groups that you can organize things into in the macro chart. A good approach is to break the macro chart into two parts. The first part contains a list of game mechanics and the objects they interact with. The second part contains a list of places and the objects those places contain. Correlating the two parts of the macro will reflect the way that the world opens up to the player when the player-character gains certain abilities.

游戏设计宏示例

Example Game Design Macros

我经常被要求提供游戏设计宏观图表的示例，那些我已获得许可分享的图表可以在本书的网站 playfulproductionprocess.com 上找到。

I’m often asked to provide example game design macro charts, and those that I have secured permission to share can be found on this book’s website, playfulproductionprocess.com.

我希望我已经说服了你关于游戏设计宏的想法。这不是一个非常迷人或震撼世界的游戏设计概念，但它是实用和务实的。人们常常想知道是什么秘密让顽皮狗的游戏如此出色。其中一个主要因素并不那么秘密：它只是游戏设计宏。

I hope I’ve sold you on the idea of the game design macro. It’s not a very glamorous or world-shaking game design concept, but it’s practical and pragmatic. People often wonder what the secret ingredients are that make Naughty Dog’s games so good. One of the chief ingredients is not so secret: it’s just the game design macro.

创建一个好的游戏设计宏需要一些思考、努力和经验。在我离开顽皮狗的最后时光，《最后生还者》的团队中的一部分成员消失在会议室里长达八个月之久，最后拿出了图 18.4中所示的一块写满索引卡的软木板。如果你熟悉《最后生还者》，你就能在这张图片中看到它的宏结构。团队无法想象最终会融入游戏中的每一个细节，但他们能够思考宏排序，从而让游戏体验如此震撼。

Creating a good game design macro takes some thought, hard work, and experience. Toward the end of my time at Naughty Dog, some of the team making The Last of Us vanished into a meeting room for the better part of eight months, eventually emerging with the cork board full of index cards seen in figure 18.4. If you’re familiar with The Last of Us, you’ll be able to see its macro structure in this image. The team had no way to imagine every last detail that would eventually go into the game, but they were able to think through the macro sequencing that would make the experience of playing through their game so impactful.

在预制作结束时，为整个游戏制定计划似乎要求很多，但请尽最大努力。相信你的直觉，专注于你在构思过程中最喜欢的想法，不要担心让你的宏观计划完美无缺。重要的是尝试创建一个你可以承诺的计划，该计划有足够的细节，你可以为全面制作制定一个好的时间表，但同时也给你留下了一些发挥创造力的回旋余地。不要想太多。一个不完美的计划比没有计划要好得多。相信你的直觉，把你的宏观计划写在电子表格里。

Making a plan for the whole of your game might seem like a lot to ask at the end of preproduction, but just give it your best shot. Trust your instincts, focus on the ideas you liked best during ideation, and don’t worry about making your macro perfect. The important thing is simply to try to create a plan that you can commit to, which has enough detail that you can make a good schedule for full production but that leaves you some wiggle room to exercise your creativity. Don’t overthink it. An imperfect plan is much better than no plan at all. Trust your gut and get your macro down in a spreadsheet.

你应该在项目预制作阶段结束前创建游戏设计微程序的初稿。这样，你就可以得到关于其长度和质量的反馈，并有时间进行至少一轮，最好是两轮迭代。来自设计同行和导师的外部反馈将帮助您在有限的时间内创建出最佳的游戏设计宏。

You should aim to create a first draft of your game design micro some time before the end of the preproduction phase of your project. That way, you can get feedback about its length and quality and have time for at least one and preferably two rounds of iteration. External feedback from design peers and mentors will help you to create the best game design macro possible in the time you have.

尝试获取有关宏观图表中问题的反馈：游戏玩法或故事流畅的地方；图表单行中发生太多不同事情的地方；宏观的任何部分都不清楚。

Try to get feedback about problems in the macro chart: places where either the gameplay or the story doesn’t flow well; places where too many different things are happening in a single row of the chart; any parts of the macro that are unclear.

特别是，尝试获取有关项目范围的反馈。创建游戏设计宏图的那一刻是控制游戏项目范围的关键机会游戏开发者很少会低估项目范围。经验不足的开发者尤其容易超出项目范围，因为他们还不了解开发一款游戏需要多长时间，以及在开发过程中会遇到多少问题和障碍。经验丰富的开发者会直观地了解游戏的计划设计是否适合可用的开发时间。与经验丰富的同事和导师核对，并尽力确保在预制作结束时项目范围得到控制。

In particular, try to get feedback about the scope of the project. The moment of the creation of the game design macro chart presents a critical opportunity to get the scope of a game project under control. It’s vanishingly rare for game developers to under-scope their projects. Less experienced developers are particularly prone to over-scoping, because they haven’t yet come to understand what a long time it takes to build a game and how many problems and obstacles they’ll encounter during development. Experienced developers come to acquire an intuitive sense of whether a game’s planned design will fit into the time available for development. Check in with your experienced peers and mentors and do your best to make sure that your project’s scope is under control by the end of preproduction.

游戏质量和游戏体验长度之间的矛盾是每种游戏开发者面临的持久挑战，也是我们应该一直讨论的问题。我相信玩家更愿意体验更短的游戏时间他们会兴奋地反复玩这些游戏，而不是只玩一次的、时间较长、质量较差的游戏。当然，这种说法的真实性或明智性取决于玩家本身，而游戏设计师的工作之一就是了解特定玩家群体的价值观和偏好。

The tension between the quality of a game and the length of the experience it provides is an enduring challenge for every type of game developer, and one that we should always be discussing. It’s my belief that players would rather have a shorter experience that they’re excited to play over and again than a longer, lower-quality experience that they’ll play only once. Of course, the truth or wisdom of that is dependent on the player in question, and it is part of a game designer’s job to understand the values and preferences of their particular community of players.

您不可能一夜之间学会创建出色的游戏设计宏，但您可以通过从一个小项目开始并尝试该技术来开始磨练您的宏技能。随着您作为游戏设计师的进步，以及您逐渐了解您喜欢制作的游戏风格的设计机会和陷阱，编写游戏设计宏将变得越来越容易，最终您将开始重视这种做法，将其视为您手艺中最重要的部分之一。

You can’t learn to create a great game design macro overnight, but you can begin to hone your macro skills by starting with a small project and trying out the technique. As you progress as a game designer, and as you get to know the design opportunities and pitfalls of the style of games you like to make, writing a game design macro will get easier and easier, and eventually you’ll come to value this practice as one of the most essential parts of your craft.

2. 1. Brian Allgeier，“提供结构：宏文档如何确保项目按计划进行”，Directing Video Games，2017 年 8 月 10 日，http://www.directingvideogames.com/2017/08/01/provide-structure/。

3. 1.  Brian Allgeier, “Provide Structure: How Macro Documents Keep a Project on Course,” Directing Video Games, August 10, 2017, http://www.directingvideogames.com/2017/08/01/provide-structure/.

4. 2. Anthropy 和 Clark，《游戏设计词汇》，17。

5. 2.  Anthropy and Clark, A Game Design Vocabulary, 17.

6. 3. Adams，《游戏设计基础》，424。

7. 3.  Adams, Fundamentals of Game Design, 424.

8. 4. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，33:47。

9. 4.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 33:47.

10. 5.私人通信，2020年5月25日。

11. 5.  Private communication, May 25, 2020.

12. 6. Block，《视觉故事》，234。

13. 6.  Block, The Visual Story, 234.

14. 7. Cerny，“2002 年 DICE 峰会”，34：55。

15. 7.  Cerny, “D.I.C.E. Summit 2002,” 34:55.

简单调度

Simple Scheduling

首先让我们看一个非常简单的进度安排方法。因为我们写了一个游戏设计宏图表，所以我们现在有了一份文档，其中描述了游戏中所有重要的内容。宏不仅为我们的游戏提供了蓝图，还为我们提供了这是我们安排项目完整制作阶段的完美起点。现在我们知道了有多少工作要做，我们还需要知道有多少时间来完成它。

Let’s look first at a very simple scheduling method. Because we wrote a game design macro chart, we now have a document that describes everything important that’s going into our game. Not only does the macro give us a blueprint for our game, it gives us the perfect starting point for scheduling the full production phase of our project. Now that we know how much work there is to do, we also need to know how much time we have to do it.

我们需要多少人时来制作我们的游戏？

How Many Person-Hours Do We Have to Make Our Game?

专业游戏开发者需要确保他们的项目完成，并且通常受到时间和金钱的严格限制，无论他们是自己资助项目还是由其他人资助。

Professional game developers need to make sure they get their project finished and are usually rigidly bound by time and money, whether they’re funding their project themselves or it’s being funded by someone else.

游戏开发者面临的最大问题就是没有时间完成游戏。如果项目接近尾声时游戏还不够完整或不够好，我们就面临一个选择：花更多时间（和更多金钱）妥善完成游戏，或者更快地完成游戏，但牺牲质量或长度。

Running out of time to finish the game is the single greatest problem that game developers face. If the game isn’t complete enough or good enough as the end of the project gets closer, we’re faced with a choice: spend more time (and more money) to finish it properly or finish it more quickly but compromise on quality or length.

如果我们不是在项目快要结束时才意识到时间不够，而是在流程早期就意识到超出范围，那么我们就能更好地处理这个问题。本书中讨论的几乎所有工具（从项目目标到同心开发、垂直切片和游戏设计宏观图表）都是面向这一目标的。我们越早意识到超出范围，我们就能越早重新分配资源并重新确定游戏范围，这样完成的游戏仍然让人感觉完整且高质量。

We can deal with this problem in a better way if, rather than realizing that we’re running out of time near the end, we understand earlier in our process that we’re over scope. Almost every tool that we’ve discussed this book—from our project goals to concentric development, the vertical slice, and the game design macro chart—is oriented toward this goal. The sooner we can understand that we’re over scope, the sooner we can reallocate our resources and rescope our game, so that the finished game still feels complete and high quality.

游戏开发者可用的核心资源是人时。这是衡量单个人对游戏投入的专注度的单位。金钱可以等同于人时，因为一个人可以支付另一个人。将时间视为经济价值是件好事，特别是如果你不习惯评估自己的时间及其使用方式。重要的是，人们应该为他们的时间得到适当的补偿。

The core resource available to game developers is the person-hour. This is a unit that measures the undivided attention of a single person working on the game. Money can be equated with person-hours, since one can pay for the other. It’s good to see your time as financially valuable, especially if you are not used to valuing your time and the way it’s spent. It’s important that people should be compensated properly for their time.

因此，在预生产阶段结束时，计算出在全面生产期间有多少人时可用于创建游戏。您可以进行简单的计算来计算出这一点。首先，确定在项目有效完成并准备进行完善时，您将在全面生产中花费多少周时间才能使项目达到 Beta 里程碑。您需要知道您的项目有多少团队成员，以及他们每个人平均每周将在项目上花费多少人时。如果您计算出这一点，那么您将拥有：

So, as you reach the end of preproduction, work out how many person-hours you have available to create your game during full production. You can do a simple calculation to figure this out. First, decide how many weeks you will spend in full production to bring your project to the beta milestone when it is effectively finished and ready to be polished. You’ll need to know how many team members you have on your project, and how many person-hours each of them will spend on the project in an average week. If you figure this out, you’ll then have:

N =团队成员数量

N = Number of team members

P =平均每个团队成员每周工作的工时

P = Person-hours that each team member will work in an average week

W =预生产结束和全面生产结束之间的周数

W = Number of weeks between the end of preproduction and the end of full production

要计算 T（时间），即项目从预生产结束到全面生产结束所需的工时数，您可以使用以下公式：

To calculate T (for time), the number of person-hours that your project has available to take it from the end of preproduction to the end of full production, you can then use this formula:

T = N × P × W

T = N × P × W

因此，对于一个两人团队（N = 2），每个人决定每周花 10 个小时从事该项目（P = 10），预生产结束和全面生产结束之间有 6 周的时间（W = 6）：

So, for a two-person team (N = 2), each of whom decides to work on the project for ten hours a week (P = 10), with six weeks between the end of preproduction and the end of full production (W = 6):

T = 2 × 10 × 6 = 120 人时

T = 2 × 10 × 6 = 120 person-hours

如果团队成员每周的工作时间不同，则必须调整计算方法，但这仍然非常简单。在我的一个班级中，对于一个二人团队，如果一名团队成员每周可以工作 8 小时，另一名成员每周可以工作 10 小时，预生产结束和全面生产结束之间有 6 周时间：

If the team members have different numbers of hours available to work each week, you’ll have to adjust the calculation, but it’s still pretty simple. For a two-person team in one of my classes, if one team member can work eight hours a week, and the other can work ten hours a week, with six weeks between the end of preproduction and the end of full production:

T = (8 + 10) × 6 = 108 人时

T = (8 + 10) × 6 = 108 person-hours

工时数为我们提供了一个具体的起点，让我们可以确定我们的游戏是否大致符合范围。简单地进行这种计算会让很多人大开眼界，对于那些在无限时间幻想下工作的人来说，这也是非常有道理的。我们马上就会看到，当我们开始列出在全面生产过程中需要做的所有事情时，这些工时很快就会被吞噬。

The number of person-hours gives us a concrete starting point for figuring out whether our game is roughly in scope. Simply doing this calculation is an eye-opener for many people, and it’s very grounding for anyone laboring under the illusion of infinite time. As we’ll see in a moment, when we start to list out all the things we need to do during full production, these person-hours will soon get gobbled up.

现在我们大概知道了我们有多少人时可供使用，我们可以开始计算出完成游戏设计宏图表中列出的所有工作需要多少人时。

Now that we know roughly how many person-hours we have at our disposal, we can start to work out how many person-hours we need to do everything listed in the game design macro chart.

最简单的时间表

The Simplest Schedule

我很喜欢简单的游戏日程安排方法。制作游戏是一件复杂的事，而我们必须做什么以及需要多长时间才能完成的实际情况变化非常快。简单的日程安排可以让我们知道我们是否大致在范围内，而不会让我们陷入大量的官僚主义。

I’m a fan of simple scheduling methods for games. Making games is a complicated business, and the reality on the ground of what we have to do and how long it takes to do it changes very rapidly. A simple schedule lets us know if we’re roughly in scope without bogging us down in a lot of bureaucracy.

最简单的计划始于在电子表格中列出我们在完整制作过程中需要完成的任务，以完成我们的游戏。我发现最好的方法是列出游戏中将要出现的对象和角色、组成游戏的环境以及我们在游戏设计宏图中提到的所有其他游戏部分。有时制作此列表就像从宏图复制粘贴到另一个电子表格一样简单。

The simplest schedule starts with a straightforward list in a spreadsheet of tasks that we need to complete during full production to finish our game. The best way that I’ve found to do this is to list out the objects and characters that will go into the game, the environments that will make up the game, and all the other parts of our game that we mention in the game design macro chart. Sometimes making this list is as simple as copy-pasting from the macro chart into another spreadsheet.

在简单的时间表中添加其他任务也很重要，这些任务与游戏中的对象、角色或环境无关，但我们知道我们必须在完整制作过程中完成，例如每周计划会议所花费的时间、编写游戏内对话脚本所花费的时间，或组织和运行游戏测试所花费的时间。

It’s also important to add other tasks to the simple schedule that don’t correspond to an object, character, or environment in the game, but that we know we’ll have to complete during full production, like the time taken for weekly planning meetings, for writing scripts for in-game dialogue, or for organizing and running playtests.

当我们开始列出制作游戏所需的任务时，很容易遇到一个问题：我们应该把列表列得有多详细（换句话说，有多详细）。我的建议是使用每个任务的完成时间来指导我们。我们稍后会详细讨论这个问题。

When we start to list out the tasks that go into making our game, it’s easy to run into a challenge around how granular—in other words, how detailed—we should make our list. My advice is to use the completion time for each task to guide us. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.

每个任务的简单计划信息

Simple Schedule Information for Each Task

现在我们在电子表格中有了任务列表，我们可以通过向每个任务添加一些信息，更进一步地接近简单的时间表。

Now that we have a list of tasks in a spreadsheet, we can move one step closer to a simple schedule by adding some information to each task.

向电子表格中添加四个列标题，如图19.1所示。在任务列表上方添加标签“任务”。在上一列添加标签“优先级”。在旁边添加“预计小时数”。在右侧添加“团队成员分配”。

Add four column headings to your spreadsheet, as shown in figure 19.1. Above your list of tasks add the label Task. One column over, add the label Priority. Next to that, add Hours Estimated. And to the right, add Team Member Assigned.